3 Associated Press Nelxraskan
2 J Edited by Jennifer O'Olka Tuesday> Aprll 30> 1991
Quake hits U.S.S.R.,
rescuers seek victims
MOSCOW - A strong earthquake
hit Soviet Georgia on Monday, set
ting off rockslides in mountain vil
lages and killing at least 40 people,
authorities said.
The quake also was felt in neigh
boring Armenia, which was devas
tated by a 1988 earthquake that killed
25,(XX) people. There were no reports
of damage or injuries in Armenia.
Police spokesman Zurab Kadzhaya
in the Georgian town of Kutaisi, near
the epicenter, said Monday night about
40 people were killed and buildings
in five mountain towns suffered wide
spread damage. The official Tass news
agency earlier reported 30 people
killed. It was not immediately known
how many people were injured.
There were fears the death toll
could rise as rescuers searched col
lapsed buildings in villages isolated
by severed communications.
An aftershock as powerful as the
initial quake struck the region at 9:33
p.m. (2:33 p.m. EDT), Tass said. U.S.
Geological Survey spokeswoman Pat
Jorgenson in Menlo Park, Calif., said
the aftershock registered 6.2 on the
Richter Scale.
Soviet Interior Ministry troops
already in the region to quell ethnic
unrest were ordered to the disaster
area to aid in rescue efforts.
The initial quake struck at 12:13
p.m. (5:13 a.m. EDT) in north-central
Georgia among the sparsely popu
lated villages and towns in the Cau
casus Mountains. It measured 7.1 on
the Richter scale, according to the
Soviet Union’s Central Seismic Sta
tion.
The epicenter was near Dzhava, a
town of 11,000 people about 60 miles
northwest of the Georgian capital of
Tbilisi.
In a report from Dzhava, Soviet
TV showed collapsed buildings and
others with gaping holes. Rescuers
standing atop a mound of rubble dug
frantically with their hands to remove
large stones in search of further vic
tims.
The independent Interfax news
agency said a kindergarten, a high
school, a hospital and a printing house
were among buildings destroyed in
addition to 30 homes.
The evening TV program “Vrernya”
showed rescuers pulling an injured
woman from a badly damaged build
ing in Dzhava. Another woman sat
stunned outside a shattered house with
her arm in a sling.
Don Finley of the U.S. Geological
Survey in Reston, Va., put the Richter
reading at 7.2 and said the quake
released about four times as much
energy as the 1988 Armenian quake.
Kadzhaya said by telephone from
Kutaisi, 63 miles west of Dzhava,
that about 40 people were killed in
the region Monday and about 80 per
cent of the buildings were destroyed
in Dzhava, Ambrolauri, Onei, Chia
tura and Sachkhere.
Aftershocks cont inued throughout
the day in the region, and a “Vrernya”
camera even captured one strong af
tershock collapsing an already se
^_-_
AP
verely damaged building.
Electricity and water supplies were
disrupted in Dzhava and communica
tions were severed, “Vrcmya” corre
spondent A. Parfendkov reported.
“Dzhava is awaiting help,” he said.
Rocks cascaded off a mountain
side onto houses in Chiatura and a
railroad station was badly damaged
in Sachkhere, Georgian officials in
Moscow said.
Georgian Prime Minister Tengiz
Sigua led a government commission
to the scene, and the Soviet govern
ment expressed condolences to be
reaved families.
Shakro Dekanoidze, a police offi
cer in Kutaisi, said two helicopters
were sent to survey damage.
Tass said the quake was felt for 30
seconds in Yerevan, the Armenian
capital. It also was felt in Spitak, an
Armenian town that was flattened by
the Dec. 7,1988.
Child witnesses
Supreme Court to hear case
WASHINGTON - The Supreme
Court said Monday it will take a new
look at the right of alleged child abusers
to question their young accusers in
court, weighing how far judges can
go to protect children from having to
testify.
The court agreed to hear an appeal
by an Illinois man who said his rights
were violated because he was con
victed, based on hearsay testimony,
of sexually abusing a 4-year-old girl.
The child never took the witness stand.
The justices will decide, probably
sometime in 1992, whether juries may
hear out-of-court statements by chil
dren when the young alleged victims
are available and capable of testify
ing but are excused from doing so.
The issue is a recurring one, some
times arising in disputes in which one
parent accuses the other of molesting
a child. Reports of child-abuse cases
now surpass two million a year, ac
cording to the National Committee
for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
The child-abuse case gives the court
a new opportunity to provide guide
lines for judges seeking to insulate
children from potentially traumatic
courtroom testimony.
The justices last year said the
constitutional right of defendants to
confront their accusers is not abso
lute. They allowed states to shield
young wimesses from face-to-face
confrontations with child-abuse de
fendants by using videotaped testi
mony, closed-circuit television and
testimony by those who interviewed
the alleged abuse victims.
The court last year also said judges
must have evidence the child faces
the risk of serious emotional trauma
before barring a face-to-face confron
tation.
Left unanswered in those past
decisions was whether judges may
exclude all testimony by alleged vic
tims capable of testifying — letting
the jury decide entirely on the basis of
hearsay evidence by those who ques
tioned a child out of court.
In oilier action Monday, the court:
•Voted 6-3 to crack down on some
people who file frivolous appeals.
The court altered its rules so that it
can strip some poor people of the
privilege of filing appeals without
having to pay a $300 filing fee plus
significant printing costs.
•Agreed to decide in a Louisiana
case whether employers may impose
wage cuts or other Changes in work
ing conditions before bargaining talks
with unions formally reach an im
passe.
•Agreed in a dispute between Ya
kima Indians and officials in Wash
ington stale to decide whether states
and counties may tax Indian-owned
land on reservations.
•Allowed Mississippi juries to be
told whether convicted murderers ever
would be eligible for parole if sen
tenced to life in prison rather than
death.
r-n
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i __
‘Star Wars’ experiment
Shuttle crew conducts tests
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The
astronauts aboard Discovery observed
eerie waves of light above the hori
zon in a “Star Wars” experiment
Monday, and ground controllers
struggled to fix data recorders needed
for other tests.
Six experiments were canceled as
a result of the recorder trouble, and
the Defense Department expected to
lose more data if the problem is not
resolved by the end of the eight-day
flight.
NASA flight directors and Penta
gon officials insisted the mission would
not be harmed by the loss of what they
termed “secondary experiments.”
Nonetheless, there was disappoint
ment.
“From our view, everything is
obviously important,” said Air Force
Capt. Marty Hauser, a Pentagon
spokesman.
The seven astronauts tried four
times to activate the two recorders
before turning their attention to in
struments unaffected by the failure.
Engineers on the ground continued to
work on the problem.
-44 -
From our view, every
thing is obviously im
portant.
Hauser
Pentagon spokesman
-— *t -
Three of five scientific instruments
that constitute one of Discovery’s
primary payloads are hampered by
the recorder problem. The instrument
considered most important by the
military has its own recorders, which
successfully collected data Monday
on atmospheric light, or aurora.
The astronauts beamed down black
and-white television images of light
rippling off the atmosphere as they
flew over the Pacific near Australia.
They sent back a videotaped scene of
a halo shimmering for thousands of
miles along the horizon with the
constellation Orion in the background.
“Pretty spectacular,” said Mission
Control's Kathy Thornton.
The crew also took pictures of a
rapid-fire sequence of steering jet
blasts. They captured that on film
with ultraviolet cameras, also unaf
fected by the recorder problem.
Officials of the Strategic Defense
Initiative, better known as “Star Wars,”
said they need information about
naturally occurring phenomena to
develop sensors that can distinguish
enemy missiles amid such clutter.
Air Force Capt. Lindlcy Johnson,
a program director, said the three
affected instruments will be used for
observations later in the mission as
planned regardless of whether the
recorders arc fixed. Information will
be transmitted instantly from a com
puter monitor in the flight deck to
ground controllers when possible, but
much of the data will be lost, he said.
“It is a critical loss... but it’s not
a complete loss,’’ Johnson said.
Johnson said 80 percent to 85 per
cent of the planned experiments for
the set of five instruments still could
be achieved even if the recorders
remain off.
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