Student-Run Project to Rebuild Earthquake-Affected Homes in Gyumri

University of Virginia students and faculty are working to restore residential areas of Gyumri, Armenia. Many Gyumri residents live in rundown, temporary structures called domiks. (Photo: University of Virginia)

VIRGINIA (Virginia.edu)””In 1988, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake devastated Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, destroying more than 320 buildings there and reportedly killing at least 25,000 people in the region.

Nearly three decades later, an 11-person team of University of Virginia (UVA) students and faculty is working to help rebuild and restore parts of the city’s still-affected residential areas.

Their work is largely due to the efforts of rising third-year engineering student Leon Yacoubian, who launched the “Tuff Armenia Project”