The Spitak Earthquake also called Leninakan Earthquake was a tremor with a moment magnitude of 7.2, that took place on December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time (07:41 UTC) in the Spitak region of Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union.In the Soviet Union, the method of recording the magnitude of earthquakes was different that the more commonly used Richter Scale. The earthquake in Spitak, as defined in the Soviet Encyclopedia, fell between "annihilating" to "catastrophe" which scored as a 10 or an 11 on the Soviet scale. A "10" was described as "great cracks in the earth.