Armenia: Return to a Town that Died

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2018

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thirty years on from the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, what’s happened to the devastated town of Spitak? Rescuers from all over the world came to help search for survivors – among them a team of British firefighters. Now, with reporter Tim Whewell, two of those men are returning - to see how the town’s been rebuilt - and to remember a rescue effort that marked a turning point in East-West relations. The disaster came as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was developing his policy of glasnost (openness) – and his request for foreign assistance was the first such appeal the Kremlin had made in decades. The firefighters relive the drama, grief and courage of those days – and renew old friendships. They discover that Spitak has still not fully recovered from the quake, with many living to this day in squalid temporary housing. Reporter Tim Whewell.

(Image: Reginald Berry and Paul Burns – two retired UK firefighters – revisit Armenia, 30 years after taking part in rescue and recovery efforts after the 1988 earthquake. Credit: BBC/Hakob Hovhannisyan)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading this podcast from the BBC. I'm Tim Hewell. It's perhaps not often enough that journalists return to the scene of big news stories, particularly natural disasters, to find out what happened afterwards. We move on sometimes too fast. But the people
0:16.2	involved in those stories of course don't move on so easily. This is an account of an emotional
0:21.5	trip back to one stricken community in the company of two men who did their best to help it. I'm an old man now, but I promised myself that I would come back and just stand and look around and take a huge deep breath and reflect a bit quietly about what went on and the role that we pled here.
0:47.0	I don't want anybody to do double summer sorts to try and understand it because they never will
1:01.6	unless you're actually their taste in that taste in the back of
1:05.3	your throat you'll never know.
1:11.3	Underneath the snow covering the northern Armenian mountains lies the remains of the city of Spi-Tak.
1:16.0	The earthquake shook virtually every building to the ground.
1:20.0	On the 7th of December 1988 a devastating earthquake struck the Soviet Republic of
1:27.3	Armenia. The USSR never usually asked for foreign assistance after disasters, but this time it issued an unprecedented
1:35.4	appeal for help, part of its leader Mikhail Gobachov's policy of glassness or openness. Rescuers arrived from many countries, including a team of firefighters from the UK.
1:49.0	This is assignment on the BBC World Service with me, Tim Hewell, 30 years on from the earthquake
1:55.4	and taking two of those firefighters back to Armenia. My name is Paul Burns. I was a
2:00.9	seasonal officer at the time.
2:03.0	My name is Reginald Berry, or Reggie Berry.
2:06.0	I was a firefighter.
2:08.0	I volunteered to participate in the search of rescue mission.
2:14.0	This would obliterated this place, and we were there,
2:18.0	and they found it extraordinary, quite simply extraordinary,
2:22.0	that these people would come from the West into what was the Soviet
2:26.4	territories and republics to give aid, they just couldn't comprehend that.
2:31.9	And that alone drove us forward.
	...

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