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Turkmenistan marks National Day of Remembrance of 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat

Politics Materials 6 October 2010 23:08 (UTC +04:00)
On Oct. 6, events were held in Turkmenistan on National Day of Remembrance of the 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat.
Turkmenistan marks National Day of Remembrance of 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat

On Oct. 6, events were held in Turkmenistan on National Day of Remembrance of the 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat.

On this mourning day, national flags are lowered across the country, as well as at the offices of Turkmenistan abroad, memorial divine services, funeral prayers are sound for the victims in mosques and churches. This year's main commemorative events will take place in the suburbs of Ashgabat - in country's main mosque in the village of Kipchak.

The night from October 5th to 6th in 1948 at 1 o'clock 12 minutes 5 seconds, there was an earthquake in Ashgabat and its suburbs. The earthquake lasted only 10 seconds, but it was around 10 point and devastated entire city in such a short time. All of the apartments, factories, schools, hospitals, government buildings, offices, and theaters equaled with the ground. Electricity, telephone lines, telegraphs, radio stations, railway stations and airport roughly damaged and basically the city was broken apart from the connection with the other part of the world. That night the whole city was in chaos.

At the beginning, the city tried to handle the situation with its own forces. People, who got out of this earthquake safe, started retrieving their family members, relatives, and neighbors from wreckages. The next day people of the USSR were shocked by the news about the Ashgabat earthquake tragedy. Those times the population of Ashgabat was 170 thousand and from them around 110 thousand of them were buried under the wreckage of the earthquake.

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