Dilijan’s Disaster
Sharp weather changes, nature anomalies in our days are conditioned by global warming. And in 1927 nobody was touching upon it in Armenia. And when the storm slapped throughout Armenia on a calm August day—from Yerevan to Ijevan, leaving destructions and victims behind, that time few were concerned about the reasons of its generation. The capital, Nerqin Akhta, Tsaghkadzor, Qarvansara, Sevan have mostly suffered from the impending disaster. But what occurred in Dilijan, is beyond imagination.
16 August 1927 was a calm, pleasant day in Dilijan. The city was full of vacationers, people were enjoying cool weather and beautiful nature, when after the midday, at around 1pm the rain started. Then the wind intensified, and in a short period it turned into a real storm, accompanied with downfall and flooding. Muddy waters flowing from mountain slopes watered streets of Old and New Dilijan, bringing down immense stones. The river in the city overflowed. It turned out that at that time about 4000 beams were arranged on the bank of the river. The downpour threw them into the river, and blocked the bridge, the waves rushed into the barrier and raised. There was no salvation.
Raising waters flooded the city in a few minutes. Homes, police post and penitentiary were the first to appear under the water. As there was no way out, the law enforcement opened the doors of penitentiary and at the last moment saved about 50 prisoners from death. Then the policemen and the prisoners together rushed to save the inhabitants. These people were raising to the roofs of the houses, opening holes and taking the inhabitants one by one. In the first hours they succeeded to rescue more than 40 people.
Panic, anxiety, excitement had merged with one another. In one place people with tears in their eyes were kissing hands of their saviors, on the other uneven struggle was ongoing against the unruly element. People tell that the waves have driven a 10 year old girl from home, who was desperately fighting with the waves. One of the residents, named Hambardzum Vardanyan, giving one ending of the rope to his friend and the other keeping in his hand, rushed into the flood and rescued the girl. They were also telling about a peasant, who was saving his horses, noticed a drowning child, left the horses and helped the child. However, casualties, unfortunately, have been recorded. The newspapers wrote that 3 children and an elderly man have drowned from Russian Dolovi village, as well as a corpse was taken from the river, which was unrecognizable.
When a few hours later the storm calmed down, Dilijan and the surrounding resembled a battlefield. Later the special commission, arriving there, should record, that 63 houses and 20 stores have been destroyed or damaged. 52 families remained without houses. Brick factory furnace, 8000 bricks have been damaged. The flood took everything from the sawmill, electric power plant, two water supply systems, gardens have been damaged. Many cattle have drowned. The water has flown to the basements and reservoirs, and bread alert was created in the city. Houses were full of sand and slime. A few bridges have been destroyed, the highway heading to the city suffered damages as well. And for restoration of all these construction material was possible to bring from Tbilisi only.
Upon preliminary calculations losses of the flood comprised about half a million rubles, which was great money for that period. Particularly the poor population, living in basements, suffered losses. However, neither during the disaster, nor on the days following it not a single case of robbery has been recorded. Just the contrary, people peacefully passed on elimination of the after-effects. All the citizens aging 15-42 have been involved. Red Cross and Armenian Relief Committee were participating in those works. Across Aghstev River special groups were gathering all the items and returning to their owners.
Near the summer club the land had immense cracks. Specialists arrived at the scene and offered to evacuate the inhabitants. One of them even advised to completely destroy that part of the city.
Now about the prisoners. It was informed to higher instances that the prisoners participated in rescuing operations. In this regard they made a decision to early release the prisoners, who passed not less than 2/3 of the punishment defined by the court.
Those days employee of Leningrad observatory, physicist Popov was in Armenia, coordinating preparation works of the observatory, to be constructed on Aragats. The latter told the following regarding August 16: “This storm didn’t bear the nature of a cyclone. Apparently it was local wind, with the speed of 25 meters per hour, which happens rarely. The wind was on southern direction, and we can conclude it was blowing from Ararat.”
With the many on those very days creative group of “Haykino” left for Dilijan for shooting. As a result, on the same year 9-minute documentary “Flood in Dilijan” was screened. Operator was G.Beknazaryan (Garosh), and the director—A.Danielyan. The disaster became not only a memory, but a history as well.
By Hovik Charkhchyan
