YEREVAN. – Ten percent—that is, about 3,000 families—of the population in Armenia’s disaster zone still has a housing problem twenty-five years after the earthquake.

Sociologist Aharon Adibekyan stated the aforesaid at a press conference on Friday. He spoke about the devastation that was caused by the deadly earthquake that had struck north and northwestern parts of Armenia back on December 7, 1988.     

Adibekyan added that the problem should have been solved twenty years after the quake, during second President Robert Kocharyan’s term in office. But, as per the sociologist, the problem was not solved, the factories did not reopen, and unemployment became a chronic disease.

“The problem still remains unsolved; but since there is no complaint, there is a problem either.

“But the main problem is resolved—the wreck is removed—; [now,] they are trying to restore the damaged buildings, [and] they are creating special restoration zones.

“[But] a continental fault line passes from there, and it [i.e., the earthquake] always has a risk of recurrence,” Aharon Adibekyan also noted.