News - Armenia seismic service chief: 45% of Yerevan buildings are highly susceptible to earthquakes

Forty-five percent of Yerevan's buildings have high susceptibility in case of an earthquake. Director of the seismic service of Armenia, Sos Margaryan, stated this at the press conference Wednesday. "If the Yerevan Fault works, that 45 percent is not only near the Yerevan Fault. (…). Those 45 percent [of Yerevan buildings] are not located closest to the epicenter [of an earthquake]. Maybe 5 percent of that 45 percent has been modified that way, or even a low-susceptibility building may have become a high- susceptibility building. We have a housing stock problem. We have constructed buildings, constructs with low seismic risk," Margaryan noted. According to him, the buildings built in the Soviet times in Yerevan were built for a lower seismic risk than they should be. "For Yerevan, we have two faults: one is located in the northwestern part of Yerevan, and the Garni Fault, which is very close. Their difference lies in their potential. The potential of the Yerevan Fault is much smaller than that of the Garni Fault," said the director of Armenia’s seismic service.