Subject:
[nowar_australia] An Armenian Nuclear/Earthquake Parable
From:
Edward Cranswick <e_cranswick@yahoo.com>
Date:
Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:18:12 +0000
To:
roeoz@yahoogroups.com, "nowar_announcements@yahoogroups.com" <nowar_announcements@yahoogroups.com>,
"nowar_australia@yahoogroups.com" <nowar_australia@yahoogroups.com>
“First make a list of all the things you need to live,
Then decide how you will live without them.”
Late 1980s -- Mikhail Gorbachev initiates policies of
glasnost and perestroika throughout Soviet Union.
Early 1988 -- A conflict develops between the neighboring
Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the status of the
Nagorno-Karabakh region.
7 December 1988 (Winter) -- The magnitude 6.8 Spitak
Earthquake occurs in northern Armenia where it kills more than 25,000
people. For the first time since WWII, the Soviet Union requests assistance
from the US government, and a group of seismologists from the US Geological
Survey and seismic engineers from other US institutions is sent to
investigate the causes and effects of the earthquake (I am a member of the
group).
21 Dec 1988 -- The US group arrives in the Armenian capital
city of Yerevan and proceeds to deploy portable digital strong motion
seismographs throughout country. This includes the deployment of a
seismograph in the Metsamor nuclear plant (roughly 80 km south of the
epicenter and 30 km west of Yerevan) where it records aftershocks for the
next several days (By contrast, it would be impossible for the US government
to deploy such a seismograph within a commercial US nuclear power plant
because of the legal complications). During the two weeks we are in Armenia,
we experience no shortages of food or power.
Early 1989 -- Although the Metsamor nuclear plant has not
been damaged by the earthquake, because the Spitak Earthquake has heightened
awareness of seismic hazard and because the explosion of the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 has heightened awareness of nuclear
hazard, the Metsamor nuclear plant is shut down by the Soviet government
(Unit 1 on 25 February 1989, and Unit 2 on 18 March 1989).
September 1989 -- Azerbaijan begins blockade of Armenian fuel
and supply lines over Karabakh issue. Armenia had received virtually all its
fuel supplies from other parts of the USSR.
1990 (Summer) -- USGS seismology group (including me) returns
to Armenia to install seismic array to monitor earthquakes and Soviet
nuclear explosions. People have food, but government is collapsing.
31 December 1991 -- Soviet Union is dissolved. Armenia no
longer has a source of fuel & power from the USSR. Reconstruction of the
epicentral region destroyed or damaged by the Spitak Earthquake grinds to a
halt. Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan becomes more intense.
January 1992 (Winter) -- Visiting Armenian seismologists tell
me horror stories of life in Yerevan, a modern city with a population of one
million, that has no electricity, no gas, no hot water, sometimes no water.
The principal urban transportation, the metro (i.e., underground railroad or
subway), does not operate. People take freezing showers; they cut down trees
in the city parks to build fires on the floors of their 5-10 story
reinforced-concrete apartment buildings; they freeze to death.
April-May 1992 (Summer) -- I am an instructor of Digital
Strong Ground Motion Seismology at the American University of Armenia,
Yerevan, located in the former Headquarters of Communist Party of Armenia --
my office has a wonderful view of Mount Ararat, the holy mountain of Armenia
(actually located just across the border in Turkey). Some of my students do
not show up for class or hand in their homework because they are in militias
fighting to protect their villages in the war with Azerbaijan. Everyone in
the general public has an earthquake theory. The Mafia has moved into much
of the power vacuum created by the collapse of the USSR, e.g., the
restaurants with the best food are Mafia-owned, and booze is sold everywhere
on the street. The cables hanging from abandoned cranes continue to swing
forlornly in the wind above the nearly completed buildings abandoned in the
earthquake reconstruction zone.
October 1993 (Winter) -- At the First International
Conference on "Earthquake Hazard and Seismic Risk Reduction" at Lake Sevan,
Armenia, we had no hot water and not a lot of food.
26 October 1995 -- Unit 2 (400 MegaWatts) of the Metsamor
nuclear plant resumes operation and provides 40% of the Armenia's
electricity.
2006 -- Armenia refuses to close down the Metsamor nuclear
plant despite the concern of the European Union that it be closed because
"nuclear plants should not be built in highly active seismic zones".
MORAL -- A world-scale government begins to collapse because
of its internal contradictions and this leads to an internal struggle for
its resources; the conflict is compounded by a natural disaster which
emphasizes the fragility of the physical infrastructure and causes the
frightened population to minimize threats to its safety; the disorganization
produced by the collapse, conflict, and defects of the physical plant result
in a near-catastrophic loss of services; after suffering the privations
caused by the lack of these services for several years, particularly during
the winter, the population decides that they are willing to risk almost
anything for hot water. NEARLY ALL OF US IN THE WESTERN WORLD CANNOT
POSSIBLY IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT THE AMENITIES WHICH WE NOW TAKE FOR GRANTED,
AND WE CANNOT MAKE INTELLIGENT DECISIONS NOW ABOUT THE EXTREME SITUATIONS WE
WILL SOON FACE BECAUSE OF PEAK OIL & GLOBAL WARMING.