THE ASHKHABAD EARTHQUAKE A STUDY IN DISASTER CONTROL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91T01172R000300080001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 23, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 15, 1951
• Content Type: STUDY

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15 May 1951
THE ASHKHABAD EARTHQUAKE
A Study In Disaster Control
Special Memorandum
No. 3
Office of Current Intelligence
Support Group, Soviet Orbit' Section
CENTRAL. INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
TOR SECRET
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The Ashkhabad Earthquake - A Study in Disaster Control
Summary
Today, the Ashkhabad earthquake of 5 October 1948 appears chiefly of
historical interest. From the point of view of intelligence, however, it pro-
vides the only available example of what the USSR can do in terms of disaster
control, and for this reason is worthy of detailed study and evaluation.
Situated in Soviet Central Asia not far from the Iranian border, Ashkhabad
is an administrative center of the Turkmen Republic, an intermediate point on
the Central Asiatic Railroad between Krasnovodsk on the Caspiai Sea and Tashkent
to the east.
The earthquake., one of the most severe in the history of the USSR, de-
.stroyod most of the city, which had a population of perhaps 125-150 thousand.
All essential services were disrupted -- water and power supply cut off, tale
communications interrupted, radio station transmission stopped, and city and
rail transport brought to a standstill. There were virtually no facilities
left for feeding or sheltering the stricken population, and most of the medical
aid had to come from-outside. The toll Of dead and injured was high, including
many of the more important officials and key personnel.
The Soviet Government immediately instituted an airlift to bring in medical
personnel, medicines and other vitally needed materials, and to evacuate criti-
cally injured persons and homeless children. Within a little more than two days
the railroad was again functioning, and thereafter the airlift was discontinued.
Technical and specialist personnel came to the city in large numbers; food,.
clothing and other' needed goods were'shipped. Hospitals were established in
tents and hospital trains, while emergency feeding points and more tents for
shelter were erected to care for the rest of the population. Construction
materials also were transported to Ashkhabad for reconstructing the city.
The available evidence indicates that the Soviet Government reacted ener-
getically to the emergency brought about by the earthquake. Before long all es-
sential services were again functioning. However;-t'is also clear that in the
long-term reconstruction of Ashkhabad, the Soviet Government has been seriously
deficient, probably because there were other more argent economic priorities in
the USSR. The experience of the Ashkhabad earthquake appears to indicate that,
while the USSR has the capability of dealing with the immediate emergency re-
sulting from a disaster, Soviet capacity to make good the damage caused by such
a disaster over the long term is severely limited.
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Introduction Hi,storry of Ashkhabad.
_._.rp.oe-_ R
Askikh b,d, formerly known as Poltoratsk, was founded as a Russian town in
r,88 e q Today it is the capital of the irkmen Soviet Socialist Republic o
Situated on..the Central Asiatic Railroad betweenKXanovodsk' on the Caspian 'Sea
to the west, a.d Tashkent to the east;' Ashkhabad prior to the earthquake had a
large modern railway station.' 9 Directly to the north is the Peski Kara Kum
De*ert, while in the south are the Elbruz Mountains stretching along the Iranian-
Turkmen border.
IIn 1940, Soviet sources described,Ashkhabad as a "great industrial and
cultural center" of the Turkmen Republic, and mentioned the, existence there of
,tome_" light industries and a large food industry. // By 1948, "Alshkhabad had
more than 200 industrial enterprises, among them, a mechanized glass works well
equ;ppdd with. the latest machinery, - a very large textile spinning works, a
silk spinning factory, meat combine, a number, of enterprises of light, food, and
gastronomic industries, a large refrigeration plant, a milling combine, canning
factories, and the largest winery-in Central Asia." Non-Soviet sources also
credit Ashkhabad with having had- a metallurgical plant, "Krasniy Metalliet't;
a metal works. "Krasniy Molot"; a factory which produced diesel engines for
-
carbon dioxide plant ich also produced other inorganic cher alsj
farm a
and several explosive plants..' 5 A plant some 150 miles to the 'north processed
sulphaar obtained from rich deposits in the vicinity.
Population statistics indic to that Ashkhabad grew from a city of 92,000
in 1926 / to 1126,000 in 1940. / A further increase,between 1940 and 1948 may
be assumed,.
Ashkhabad lies in a region of orchards and vineyards. Before the earthquake
the city was divided into two portions, old and new. The street pattern was
gridiron, the streets straight, wide and lined with trees. All those in the new
part of town and, some in the old were paved with asphalt. The two three-lar}ed
asphalted, roads entered the city, one from the Iranian frontier to the south
aid. the other from Firyuza to the west A third surfaced road entered from the
northwest. An improved dirt road from the southeast formed an additional, link
with ?, - Iranian border. The city was served by three important airfields, one
situated .i miles southeast in the direction of.the Iranian frontier, another
9 M'_Ales west of Ashkhabad on the road to. Firyuza, and the third to the north
adjoining the c ity o W
z,t.opeaia br:ata anica, 1949 ea- The uolumpIa rncyclopeaia gives lord as
T 4
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25X1
Aee the capital of the Republic, Ashkhabad must have had direct telegraphic
and telephonic coxr nunic;ations not only with Moscow but with other cities and
regional centers in the Turkmen Republic. The city reportedly had three radio
sta:tioris, one a?to the airfield to the southeast and another at the. airfield on
the Fl..ryuza road.. The third may have been in the radio center for transmitting
and receiving in the southern sector of the city, but this cannot be,verified. 2
Billeting facilities included four barracks, and a 46 unit apartment
bui',ding erected for officers o A large warehouse and three large oil tanks,
a, I of undetermined capacity, were located at the railroad station A number
of .o.; pita1s ex sted, but data on location and size are lacking. 2
A thk ;had , in 1940. had 5 higher educational institutions (among them the
'd1a gest p .e L R]L, agricultural and pedagogical institutes".), 31 twenty
to hni,G Aim o high schools, 9 scientific research inst Lutes, 4/ an opera house,
the Nat ional. Dramatic Theatre, and 7 local theatres. 5
Today, the damage caused by the 1948 earthquake is still in process of
be ing repaired. Judging from the general restoration plan 6 much of the city
i to
be entirely rebuilt This includes the most important square, "Republican
Square," around which will be erected the Government House, the building belonging
to the Central -Committee of the Turkmen Communist Party and the Soviet Army
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At, 231.2 on. 5 October 1948 Moscow time or 0112 on 6 October local timeR an
earthquake occurred in the general vicinity of the city of Ashkhabad. The earth-
qu .kew wag estimated to have had a strength of about 9 at Ashkhabad; shocks were
regiet,,.red by Soviet seismological stations in Moscow (where it was said to
1 a ie ex e ded anything previously noted), Sverdlovsk, Irkutsk, Tashkent,
1 ad v et~ok:~ TbiliR1, Erevan, Stalinabad, Alma-Ata, Frunze, Andizhan, Samarkand,
Chimp prat and elsewhere. The Ashkhabad seismological station itse was either
:des r e.pyed or eeri: ou,sly damaged. As a result of . precise analysis, 1 the epicenter'
the eartfhsq,.aake was f:Lnal y located at 3706 north latitude, 58x7 east longitude,
or about 25-3O kilometers southeast of Ashkhabad within the borders of the
4:4.r.en SSR 4
The. city of Ashkhabad was in large measure destroyed. Pravda of 9 October
+,d re1x'r ,ed the destruction of ".industrial enterprises, administrative buildings,
majority of souses, city and railroad transport, communications installations
:}.terra ?,~~.qt r a r estah.ia.s1im~=n.f.s. rt S. Sabayev, Chairman of the Turkmen SSR Council of
.ter s was quoted. as saying that all industrial enterprises in the city had
yt, damage to a greater or lesser degree. Out of more than 200 industrial
.r ;..rpr r.ee.r, :, 2 were reported destroyed. Babayev also noted, however, that some
at P.t _ta~;s !,till remained standing and could be quickly reconstructed in order to
gtiatr?t ers 0
A ~_, .k l A. ed account in Pravda of 14 October asserts that some buildings
s? < ,' stories in her..ght escaped more or less unscathed, and a grain elevator,
des ::. vnated as the tallest structure in Ashkhabad, was specifically said to have
ee;;r, soar what damaged but did not, collapse. The same account claims that
,.y,-:~zt r ~ .. s ryrurtures withstood the quake better than other types of buildings,
'., F. Bomohkovsk.i, writing in the December 1948 issue of Vestnik Akademii
4uik, reported the . ?indi.ngs of a special seismological Commission sent to
ikhabad by the USSR Academy of. Sciences 0 This commission determined that
;ha a A.s of adobe construction, were almost entirely destroyed; although the sun-
bay,ud."ric.ks remained whole, the thin mortar with which they were cemented gave
wmay,, causing the collapse of these houses. Solid-masonry or baked-brick houses
7.red only from collapse of single walls or open cracks, Those buildings
wY :L h were constructed with reinforced concrete foundations or earthquake-proof
f ame.wcrks were i .am< ged to a much lesser extent. Wooden structures fully with-
stood the earthquake and remained usable Bonchkovski also stated that due to
.e fact t,haat there was no permanent ground displacement, roads, cellars, water
ze r du.it ;, telegraph cables and all buildings with solid foundations were not
7amaged,
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Bonn:h.kovsk.ils statement that underground installations had escaped un
da~cf ~c~ is not exactly in .accord with the actual disruption of essential services 25X1
which took place as a result of the earthquake. The water and electrical supply
xe 4 .ity as cut off, telephone, telegraph and 'radio connections were severed
a pted.
There wa,c conaidea?able destruction in the vicinity of the railway station, and
rail c o e .era.ts ,.w3
V in the direction of Krasnovodsk and toward Tashkent came to a
l.Wa . ? The food distribution system and medical facilities were also disrupted.
al number of people killed in Ashkhabad by the earthquake has never
en :x ,, ealed by Soviet sources and hence remains unknown. However, an estimate
e dead may be ventured on the basis of previous death tolls from earthquakes
the &re . Soviet sources estimated that 5 thousand people perished in the
era, r E:t? au thq?..a.:tc:e of 1893, 3 thousand in the. Kuchan earthquake of .1895, and across
thborder in Iran at 'east 5 thousand as a result of the Ashkhabad earthquake.
.oR i7 `9, ~f The 1948 earthquake has been described as the most destructive ever
n .r, x^ . *rseed. it-j. Ashkhabad and one of the strongest in the history of the Soviet
Un, cr,,. In view of this, and also in view of the probability that Ashkhabad's
p .ai. r on in 1918 had more than doubled since 1929, . / the death toll could be
cn .e ~r ,,?e ly estimated at 10-.20 thousand and may actually have been considerably
. hajev, in his Pravda interview of 11 October, announced that a number
s ~ igh d ''t ~_~ .a :! s szad died in the earthquake. Deputy Minister of State Control
Fa kci c;h.:, Dep ty Mini; ter of the Meat and Dairy Industry Uvarov; deputy Gosplan
repr et:e otative atia, .ontov .Public Prosecutor of the Turkmen SSR Gukov; and Deputy
of tho Ashkhabad Railroad Zamchalov were among the victims.
Pravda of, .10 October reported that a total of 6,226 injured persons was
e~ ~ .w; ed by aix to other cities -? the majority of them on three days, 6, 7 and
S , fi