YEREVAN, December 7 (RIA Novosti) - Armenia is holding ceremonies across the country on Sunday to remember victims of a devastating earthquake that hit the South Caucasus country twenty years ago, killing 25,000 people and leaving more than 500,000 homeless.
The earthquake measuring about 7 points on the Richter scale struck the Spitak region of then Soviet Armenia on December 7, 1988, flattening towns and villages across the republic. The town of Spitak was completely destroyed by the tremor.
According to scientists' data, the earthquake's force at the epicenter was equivalent to ten times the power of the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. aviation on Japan's city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 during World War II.
