but foreign help would be required to build six additional facilities. Boris Karapetyan, director of earthquake studies at the Yerevan Polytechnical Institute, said of the difficult rebuilding process "Coordination is a major, major problem. This is a massive undertaking, and foreign involvement is both a necessary and a complicating factor. We need foreign assistance—and there is no doubt about that—but our friends do not know the local conditions and propose things that cannot or should not be built in an earthquake-prone region." The Soviets and an American group of architects each devised separate outlines for rebuilding the town of Spitak. Following an invitation by the Soviets for a critique of their plan, the American proposal was ultimately accepted as the way forward. The new plan would deviate from Soviet styles that were found to be rigid and outdated and would mirror characteristics of the local culture. For many years following World War II the Soviets practiced a methodical top-down approach to urban planning and building, constructing a large number of uniformly built row style apartment units, and the Soviets plan for rebuilding Spitak did not diverge from that approach. The Soviet's grid plan road scheme was found to not take into account the hillside at the new city's location, and the American plan included finer details of how commercial centers and government facilities were grouped together in an open and communal style. Gallery Other events The Tsaghkadzor earthquake on October 20, 1827, was centered about southeast of Spitak and had a maximum intensity of VIII on the Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale. While that shock may have been related to the Pambak-Sevan fault, the October 22, 1926 Leninakan earthquake to the west of the 1988 event also had a maximum intensity of MSK VIII. See also Earthquake (2016 film) FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force Geography of Armenia List of earthquakes in 1988 List of earthquakes in Armenia Lord Byron School (Gyumri) Ministry of Emergency Situations (Russia) Out of the Ruins Urban Search and Rescue Virginia Task Force 1 References Sources Further reading External links M 6.8 - Armenia from the United States Geological Survey Earthquake Damage, the Armenian SSR, December 7, 1988 – National Geophysical Data Center On this day – 1988: Death toll rises in Armenian earthquake – BBC Rescue efforts underway after earthquake strikes the Soviet republic of Armenia – ABC News Armenian Earthquake Memorial at the Red Cross