THE QUAKE : Soviets Offer Relief Aid, Condolences to Victims

The Soviet government made an unprecedented offer of relief aid to the United States today and said Soviet citizens can sympathize with victims of the earthquake in Northern California.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent condolences to earthquake victims in a telegram to President Bush, Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news briefing.

Asked what aid the Soviet Union might have to offer, Gerasimov said, “It’s hard for me to say. We have a very sad experience in the earthquake in Armenia.”

A quake in the southern Soviet republic, of approximately the same magnitude as the San Francisco quake, left 25,000 dead last winter. Despite an influx of Soviet and foreign aid, much of the area is still in ruins.

If the Soviets do help the victims of an American quake, it would be a first. Millions of dollars of U.S. assistance, along with aid from numerous other countries, poured into Armenia following the Dec. 7 quake there.

It was the first time the Soviets, faced with a gigantic natural disaster, accepted such relief assistance from abroad.

Gerasimov said Yuri V. Dubinin, the Soviet envoy to Washington, was urgently instructed “to get in touch with the American Administration so that we are clear on what are the issues which are the spheres of possible help.”

Gorbachev expressed “sincere sympathy” for quake victims in his telegram to Bush, Gerasimov said.

He told reporters that the consequences of the Armenian disaster made the Soviets especially sensitive to the plight of Californians stricken by the Tuesday quake.

“For the Soviet people, who experienced not long ago the pain of loss from the catastrophe in Armenia, the feelings of grief that the American people are feeling today are especially close and understandable,” Gerasimov said.