The 1926 Kars/Leninakan earthquake occurred at 21:59 local time on 22 October 1926 in the border area of Soviet

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

and eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It had a

surface wave magnitude The surface wave magnitude (M_s) scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements of Rayleigh surface waves that travel along the uppermost layers of the Earth. This ma ...

of 6.0 and a maximum felt intensity of IX (''Violent'') on the

Mercalli intensity scale The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

, causing 360 casualties. Many buildings in

Leninakan Gyumri ( hy, Գյումրի, ) is an urban municipal community and the second-largest city in Armenia, serving as the administrative center of Shirak Province in the northwestern part of the country. By the end of the 19th century, when the city w ...

and surrounding villages were destroyed or damaged. The Soviet investigation by the geologist Pyotr Lebedev, published in 1927, noted that the quake could be felt as far away as

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the second largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of th ...

and even

Sochi Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...

, and that aftershocks lasted for several days. He noted that up to 300 people were killed in the quake in Soviet Armenia, with about the same number seriously injured.
П. И. Лебедев, “Ленинаканское землетрясение 22 октября 1926 г.”, Известия Академии наук СССР. VI серия, 21:5 (1927), 887–912

References

1926 Kars Earthquakes in Armenia Earthquakes in the Soviet Union 1926 in Turkey 1926 earthquakes History of Kars Province October 1926 events 1926 in the Soviet Union 1926 disasters in Turkey 1926 disasters in the Soviet Union {{Turkey-hist-stub

See also

References