Artak Barseghyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Armenia is situated in a seismically unstable region. The seismic risk indices updated after the devastating earthquake in Spitak show that the buildings of Soviet times do not meet the norms.
According to Zaven Khlghatyan, the head of the Earthquake-Resistant Construction Center of the Armenian National Survey for Seismic Protection, 4 700 buildings in Yerevan are in a risky condition, and 40% could completely or partially collapse in case of a strong earthquake with the number of victims reaching 100 thousand or above.
According to him, the scarcity of financial resources does not allow to raise the level of seismic resistance in a short period of time. He added, however, that the newly-constructed buildings correspond to the seismic norms.
