The World - News from Jan. 9, 1989

Armenia’s controversial nuclear power plant, which survived last month’s earthquake, will be closed by spring, Soviet television said, quoting the republic’s Communist Party chief. Suren G. Arutyunyan announced the closure in a speech to a Communist Party meeting in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. Soviet Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov said after the earthquake that the plant at Medzamor, about 15 miles from Yerevan, would be shut within two years due to growing public fears. The tremor did not damage the nuclear plant, but it revived a longstanding controversy about the station. Arutyunyan said the station’s first reactor will be shut down Feb. 25 and the second on March 18.