Snow Falling in Armenia; Evacuation of Women, Children Stepped Up

Worsening weather conditions with falling snow in earthquake-battered Soviet Armenia spurred officials Sunday to step up evacuation of women and children as survivors clung to the hope that more trapped victims could be saved from the rubble.

But although rescue efforts were continuing, the massive government operations in the stricken republic were turning increasingly toward reconstruction. A team of U.S. seismologists flew to the Soviet Union on Sunday to join in the effort to rebuild the devastated areas 11 days after the magnitude 6.9 quake killed an estimated 50,000 people.

Pravda, the Communist Party daily, reported that in the first 10 days after the Dec. 7 quake, 15,252 people had been dug out alive from the ruins of Armenian cities and villages, where an estimated 500,000 people were left homeless.

But judging from official media reports, attempts by Soviet and foreign rescue teams to locate additional survivors in the shambles of Leninakan, Spitak and other northwest Armenian cities crumbled by the quake were becoming futile.

Only one survivor was rescued in the 24-hour period ending Saturday night, the Tass news agency said. During the same period, 89 bodies were extricated from the ruins.

There were no reports Sunday of any more survivors.

“The first, most acute phase of the rescue effort is coming to an end,” Radio Moscow said. “Preparations have started for restoring the industries and housing.”

Dutch television journalist Alexander Munninghoff, who returned to Moscow on Sunday from Spitak, said all foreign relief workers have been asked to leave the city by Tuesday, apparently because the rescue effort is ending.

No official announcement has been made of an end to the search, a potentially explosive issue in Armenia, where some people have sat in front of bulldozers to prevent the clearing of debris until it can be searched for victims.

Associated Press photographer Boris Yurchenko, who also was in Spitak, said the city that was once home to 25,000 people is now nearly deserted, with a few people searching for relatives remaining behind and taking shelter in tin garages left standing by the quake.

An estimated 15,000 people were killed in Spitak, and many decomposing bodies still lie buried in ruined buildings.

‘Terrible Threat of Epidemic’

“The smell is becoming more and more pronounced every day,” Yurchenko said. “The first sign of the terrible threat of an epidemic--dead dogs and swarming rats--are forcing rescue teams to hurry, since no leveling of the town can be done with corpses still remaining in their stone graves.”

But while the rescue effort was winding down, the evacuation of women and children was being pushed, Radio Moscow said.

“The evacuation of women and children must be sped up since the weather forecast predicts wet snow and wind for the next two days,” the radio said before reports from the area told of snow beginning to fall.

More than 9,800 women and children have been evacuated in the last 24 hours, the report said.

Soviet television said another 4,500 children are to be moved out today with their mothers.

The report said that within two or three days, only people who were directly participating in restoration work will remain in the stricken areas.

Halt to Aid Urged

An official of the League of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, George Reed, urged foreign relief groups Saturday to stop sending workers and equipment to Armenia, saying large vehicles are clogging roads in areas near the Turkish border.

Soviet Red Cross officials have said they need specialized items such as artificial kidney machines rather than more foreign doctors. But Reed said relief workers are being overwhelmed by planeloads of medical equipment.

In Washington, the Armenian Relief Society said 20 kidney dialysis machines left Andrews Air Force Base outside the capital on Sunday for Armenia.

It said the machines, donated by a private U.S. health care company, were accompanied by a planeload of much needed antibiotics, a kidney specialist, two technicians and a nurse.

U.S. Seismologists

Tass reported that a group of 16 American seismologists flew to the Soviet Union on Sunday, bringing specialists in the construction of earthquake-resistant buildings and in the organization of rescue and rebuilding operations.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has criticized the flimsy five- and nine-story apartment buildings constructed in the 1960s and 1970s that collapsed during the quake.

Armenian activists, embittered by Moscow’s refusal to grant their demands in a territorial dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan, have accused the central government of bungling relief efforts and not doing enough to warn Armenians of the danger of an impending earthquake.

Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, who heads a special Politburo commission overseeing the relief campaign, expressed frustration with the attitude of some Armenians in comments broadcast Sunday by Radio Moscow.

“The people should gradually return to work,” Ryzhkov said at a meeting of the commission in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. “This will put an end to various unwelcome moods. The workers of distressed areas should get actively involved first in restoring the destroyed facilities, then in operating them.”

Crackdown on Militants

Soviet media continued to report on an official crackdown against Armenian militants, including members of the Karabakh Committee, six of whose leaders have been arrested.

The committee has spearheaded the 11-month-old campaign for annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian region of Azerbaijan.

Radio Moscow said that members of the committee, which was ordered disbanded by the government, had mounted “continuous onslaughts” on authorities since the earthquake and urged strikes and demonstrations.

Soviet newspapers published detailed accounts over the weekend of looting and other crimes in quake-stricken areas. Some crane operators have tried to extort money from people whose relatives lie under rubble, the trade union daily Trud said.