Dazed Quake Survivors Search for Kin, Count the Dead : ‘ . . . As Though the Earth Was Boiling’

At 270 Sverdlovsk St., Tamara Kazaryan had just come home from work for her lunch break.

In a ground-floor apartment, Eduard Manoyan’s wife was at home with her mother. Several other relatives had stopped by.

Then, just before noon Wednesday, the long, five-story concrete building with 50 apartments collapsed in the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that rocked Leninakan and destroyed most of the city as well as other parts of Soviet Armenia.

Residents said the first shock lasted about two minutes.

“There was a loud humming noise, then steam burst out of the ground, buildings began to rock like boats and it was as though the earth was boiling,” one said.

Several people were pulled out alive from the building immediately afterward, but by Sunday, many relatives were losing hope.

Manoyan knew that his wife, her mother and her brother had been killed.

“We don’t know whether anyone is alive or not,” said Kazaryan’s husband, a laborer. “I went to the school where my son studies. The building was ruined, but he was alive. Then I came home and started searching for my wife.”

People Milling About

On Sunday, the first Western correspondents to visit Leninakan found many people milling about in shock and mourning.

The city’s mayor, Emile Kirakosyan, said he had lost his entire family of 15.

“I have no home or family,” he said, his voice breaking. “My wife, grandsons, everyone--they’re all gone. I must just keep working.”

Hundreds of other people were clambering over the debris, tugging with bare hands at chunks of concrete, steel girders and splintered timbers in a desperate attempt to reach the few still believed to be alive.

“Over there near the top, they found seven people alive--they are going to get them out now,” said a young, unshaven man, his eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion, gesturing toward the ruins of a nine-story apartment building.

As sunset approached, a voice cried from under the ruins: “I can see the light. Seven people are here and dust is falling in on us.”

As a light rain began to fall, at least 50 people, pulling on a rope, tried to haul away a massive slab of concrete to free the survivors. Their fate was not immediately known.

But in most parts of the city, people said voices that had cried out since the first few minutes of the disaster have now fallen silent.

“I’ve been working here solidly for all five days,” said crane operator Anton Sukisikanyan. “In that time we’ve brought out 23 people alive. I don’t want to talk about how many bodies--but there were 280 people in this building.”

From the ruins behind him smoke billowed from underground fires, adding an acrid smell to the odor of corpses.

“My daughter is lying under that pile of rocks, and there is no equipment,” said Anayid Masuyan, 43, huddled with five other women around a campfire, blankets around their legs.

“They say the whole world is helping us,” Masuyan said, sobbing. “Where are the cranes from the entire world?”

Rescuers, many of them overcoming personal grief, said their equipment was inadequate and that they had not been properly organized.

“Things are a bit better now, but at the beginning there was nothing--no cranes, no cutting gear, no lights, nothing,” said Lernik Yeremyan, a student leading a team of volunteers. “Just 60 people standing up there and yelling at each other.”

Since the disaster, 150 cranes have been brought into the city, but most appeared too small to do more than nibble at the mountains of shattered masonry.

The weather, which is above freezing, is unseasonably warm in Leninakan, but colder weather has been forecast this week. Normally, December temperatures dip below freezing.

One woman said Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev received a cool reception when he toured the rubble-strewn city on Saturday.

“He didn’t bother to come here for nine months,” she said, referring to months of ethnic strife between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan. “What use is there in him coming now?”