Soviets Vow to Press Search for Quake Survivors : ‘We Must Fight to Very End’ in Armenia, Health Minister Says

Although hope is fading for victims trapped in the rubble of last week’s devastating earthquake in northern Armenia, the Soviet health minister declared Wednesday that the search for survivors will continue until every building had been searched and every pile of debris had been moved.

“We cannot abandon the search until we have removed the last of the debris, for there might be someone alive under this pile, the next or the one after,” said the minister, Dr. Yevgeny I. Chazov. “Our chances for finding many people alive are dwindling, of course, but we must fight to the very end.”

Recalling that survivors were found nearly two weeks after the 1985 Mexican earthquake, Chazov said he believes that there are “still a lot of people to be rescued” in the aftermath of the Dec. 7 temblor.

Dramatic Underscoring

The nightly television news program Vremya dramatically underscored his point with film showing an elderly woman, moaning with pain and blood streaming down her face, trapped in the ruins of a building. Young men, who had removed much of the debris pinning her down, stood by helplessly as they waited for the heavy equipment they needed to free her.

In another agonizing scene, the television showed an old woman crouched in front of a row of corpses covered with sheets and blankets. A tearful doctor appealed for relatives to stay out of hospitals to reduce the risk of infection to the injured.

The official estimate of the dead from the disaster remains at 55,000, but it is likely to rise as rescue teams press their search in the cities of Leninakan, Kirovakan and Spitak and begin to work in largely neglected rural areas, where 48 villages were destroyed.

Unofficial sources have estimated that the total of dead could be as many as 100,000 out of the total population of 700,000.

Noting that Soviet and foreign rescue teams had found 60 people alive in the rubble Tuesday, Chazov said that, although this number is likely to diminish daily, it more than justifies the continuing search.

“In Spitak, we lifted a concrete wall and saw the father dead there, the mother dead, but then we found a 3-year-old girl who was alive,” Chazov added. “Each life is precious. Each must be saved.”

Dr. Georges d’Allemagne of the international relief organization Medecins Sans Frontiers told journalists in Yerevan, the Armenian capital: “We will continue to look for people, especially with our dogs. We think there are chances for about another week to find a few people.”

Chazov angrily denied rumors, both abroad and in Armenia itself, that the government is halting the rescue effort and bulldozing the ruins. But he did acknowledge that search efforts are concentrated now on major “targets” where many people were gathered--factories, schools, department stores and government offices--when the earthquake struck.

Hundreds May Be Trapped

As many as 300 people may be trapped in a textile mill in Leninakan and 200 people at a large bakery at Spitak, and government officials ordered additional manpower and equipment to both to speed the rescue efforts.

“The human body is a unique system, and whether a person survives all depends on the injuries and the situation,” Chazov told a news conference after returning from directing medical operations in Armenia for the past week.

He added: “If a person survived the earthquake itself, he may live for some time. . . . We must struggle and fight without stopping for those who are buried in those ruins.”

With the weather turning much colder and snow falling in Armenia, Chazov warned that all survivors, both those still in the rubble and those left homeless, face an additional risk from pneumonia and other illness.

The government is trying to evacuate at least 100,000 children, their mothers and the elderly. But officials are meeting resistance from people who want to remain near their homes, even though they are in ruins, and who fear that if they leave, they may never be able to return to Armenia.

Medical authorities also are stepping up precautionary measures against possible epidemics, Chazov said, and are working with army engineers and civilian sanitation teams to ensure prompt burial of the dead and to provide clean drinking water, toilet facilities and refuse disposal.

“Epidemics are one of the most dangerous consequences of such disasters, but so far we have seen nothing of this sort,” he said.

Meanwhile, controversy continued over the country’s preparedness for the disaster and its management of the relief effort.

Chazov called for the establishment of an emergency medical service with special personnel and equipment, including its own planes, helicopters and mobile hospitals. He also recommended that an international center, perhaps part of the United Nations, coordinate major relief efforts worldwide.

“I am a doctor for more than 35 years,” he added, “and I have never encountered such serious injuries on such a massive scale.”

Chazov said that 15,227 people had been treated for injuries in the first week after the earthquake, that 9,150 had been hospitalized and that more than 3,350 major operations had been conducted in the past week.

A decision was taken early in the rescue effort to administer first aid at the scene but then to evacuate the injured quickly to Yerevan and hospitals outside the earthquake area, Chazov said. At the peak of activity, more than 4,000 medical personnel, including 700 Soviet and 160 foreign doctors, were working in the region.

“We decided to organize the work in a similar way to our fathers in World War II--by evacuating the wounded--because we faced the same-scale problem as well as the complete destruction of all medical facilities,” he explained. At times, he said, doctors had to perform amputations in the midst of ruins.

Chazov added that one of the most serious medical problems now is the large number of “crush syndrome” cases, in which poisons that build up in the body of a trapped person overwhelm the kidneys’ ability to purify the blood when the person is freed. More than 500 such cases have been reported so far. The main course of treatment is at least two weeks of dialysis on an artificial kidney machine.

The other troublesome problem has been severe infections of open wounds that have festered for up to a week before being treated.

The Soviet civil defense system, which was supposed to coordinate disaster relief, had shown itself to be inadequate, Chazov suggested. His remarks reflect widespread criticism in the Soviet press of a slow start to rescue efforts and of chaos at Yerevan as relief supplies arrive faster than they can be distributed.

A special commission of the Soviet Communist Party’s ruling Politburo sharply criticized the way that Armenian authorities have received and stored the relief supplies arriving at Yerevan and Leninakan.

“It is necessary to ensure that human kindness and compassion are not discredited by negligence,” the commission said, ordering special measures to make sure none of the goods are embezzled, diverted to unauthorized uses or wasted. “The cargoes will be registered and shipped under guard to warehouses of appropriate ministers, later to be sent to quake-stricken towns and districts as requested.”

Additional measures were taken by the police and army to halt looting in the earthquake zone. The area has been placed under the authority of a military commander, troops patrol the streets, a nighttime curfew has been imposed and access is now strictly limited with controlled entry and exit points.

Steps are also being taken at the insistence of the Politburo commission to restore electrical power, re-establish telephone links and reopen secondary roads and railways into and out of the region.

Phone Numbers for Concerned Kin

The Soviet government Tuesday set up eight telephone lines to Armenia manned by Soviet officials who will give information to Armenians living in the United States about relatives in earthquake-stricken areas.

The numbers in Yerevan, the Armenian capital:

(88850) 564-434, (88850) 563-516, (88850) 564-881, (88850) 580-003, (88850) 580-883, (88850) 581-512, (88850) 581-513 or (88850) 584-331.

Calls cannot be direct-dialed; they must be placed through an international operator.

At the same time, the American Red Cross began accepting inquiries from Southland residents seeking information about immediate relatives in the quake area.

Red Cross officials said they will relay queries to the Alliance of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the U.S.S.R.

Officials said inquiries would be accepted only about people who live in the area devastated by the quake and who normally are in direct contact with the inquirer.

Residents of Los Angeles County should call the Los Angeles chapter at: (213) 739-4543. Orange County residents should call the Orange County chapter at: (714) 835-5381.