Talk:1988 Armenian earthquake

initial media coverage
should it be noted that the soviet media initially reported "no distructions or casualties"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.189.58.173 (talk) 04:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC).
 * If you have any websites that state this sure. Nareklm 22:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Lives lost
In the article for the year 1988, it states the amount of lives lost was nearly 25,000. In this article, it states that it was 50,000. This is a shockingly unreliable trend. Which is correct? It needs changing. It might also be wise to check other articles on this earthquake too.  Lra drama 18:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes huge discrepancies. This article now says 25,000 but "The worlds greatest disasters" 1990 ISBN 1851522131 1992 edition p28 says that "the official [Armenian] death toll was 55,000 but unofficial estimates were nearer 100,000". Rod57 (talk) 01:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Results
Can it be said that the earthquake and the aftermath, like Chernobyl two years previously, meant that the USSR had to make concessions in its domestic policy? Would it be interesting or worthy of the article to suggest that the international community had to support Soviet relief efforts and that this led to the need for greater openness in general? Finding contemporary sources might be problematic but doubtless some historian or other could come up with a plausible connection between the need for the international community to help and thus the exposure of the shortcomings of the Soviet system in providing for people within the disaster area. It needn't be POV as long as it was handled sensitively but the fallout of the earthquake had larger repercussions for the USSR as a whole than, say, similar disasters in Soviet Central Asia in the 1960s which were hushed up successfully.

I have Russian friends who say it was well-understood at the time that the USSR could not cope with the scale of the disaster, and having to accept humanitarian aid from the West meant that serious flaws were exposed; they cite it as one of the pivotal events in the ending of Communism on a par with the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. (I even have a book from 1977 - on the subject of "omens" and prophecies - that includes the idea "the return of Halley's Comet will mark the ending of Russia's quest for world domination". When Halley's Comet was at its perihelion in 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded, thus precipitating glasnost, perestroika and the events leading to the fall of communism. I have read a lot of these kind of things and always doubted until coming across just such a concrete example...) Lstanley1979 (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Magnitude scale
I changed the magnitude scale that was used in the infobox as no one knows what the numbers on the soviet scale represent, and it is probably more of an intensity scale than magnitude. RapidR (talk) 03:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The info box has 2 magnitude scales - surface wave and local(richter) magnitudes. There is no reference for this, so I added a citation needed note. None of the references say which scale is used (just earthquake of magnitude x, apart from the BBC but they are not reliable on seismological matters). Part of the article mentioned it being on the richter scale, but as the citations don't say it is Richter scale, I changed it to just say 'magnitude.' In fact the info box says the richter magnitude is 7.2 (without reference) whereas the 6.9 apparaently refers to surface wave magnitude.

There are many magnitude scales, of which richter (local, or ML) is just one and hasn't been commonly used for several decades. So we still need to find out which scale is referred to in the article, and find proper references 130.209.6.40 (talk) 11:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Copypasting
A large part of this article is copypasted from this website. Is this allowed in the English sector of the Wikipedia? I'm not sure about your rules. BadaBoom (talk) 12:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * It's the other way around; that website copied Wikipedia. If you view historical versions of their page via archive.org you can see that they even admit to the copying. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Pierre Schaeffer
The New York Times article that supports the Aftermath section does mention a fellow by the name of Pierre Schaeffer, but is this really the well-known musician? At the time of the earthquake "our" Pierre Schaeffer would have been 78 and leading a rescue team, several hundred strong, into an earthquake ravaged country? Dawnseeker2000  03:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 18:53, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

1988 Spitak earthquake → 1988 Armenian earthquake – WP:COMMONNAME Ե րևանցի  talk  03:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC) In Armenian, yes, it is known as the Spitak earthquake, but more English sources use "1988 Armenian earthquake" than "1988 Spitak earthquake" as clearly shown by Google Books:
 * "1988 Armenian earthquake" - 4,130 results
 * "1988 Spitak earthquake" - 1,220 results — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yerevantsi (talk • contribs) 03:33, 7 March 2014
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

To-do list
I see that this article has already passed as a GA, but there are a number of things I want to point out that should be added to the article: -- Ե րևանցի talk  04:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * December 7 is officially a public holiday in Armenia, officially called "Earthquake Victims Memorial Day" (Երկրաշարժի զոհերի հիշատակի օր)
 * northwestern Armenia is widely known as the "disaster zone" (even used by the government; աղետի գոտի in Armenian)
 * it was "The greatest natural disaster to occur in Armenia in modern times"
 * maybe a little about how after over 25 years there are still people living in self-made houses, popularly known as "domik" (from Russian "little house")
 * criticism of the Armenian government (e.g. tert.am called Dec 7, 2013 a "Day of shame" because it's already been 25 yrs)
 * the earthquake's demographic impact. I think Gyumri's population decreased almost by half in 20 years due to emigration. And if I'm not mistaken, Shirak and Lori provinces (the two that were affected) have the highest unemployment rate in Armenia
 * widespread mobilization of the Armenian diaspora communities to help Armenia, I'm sure there are many sources on this one. The diaspora's reaction was huge. Aznavour's example alone is evident
 * Lincy Foundation of the Armenian-American billionaire Kirk Kerkorian was founded in 1989 for providing relief "In the past 13 years, the Lincy Foundation has provided $45 million alone for construction in Armenia’s 1988 earthquake disaster zone and, as a result, around 3,700 apartments were constructed, as well as numerous roads, schools, and cultural facilities were renovated."
 * "More than half a million people were left homeless, of whom 7,000 still lack accommodation after more than two decades but the government has promised that all will have homes by 2013. Of the total, 4,200 are in Gyumri and whole chunks of the city are still made up of domiks - old shipping containers turned into temporary accommodation that has become permanent."

The article lacks basic information in the introductory paragraph: edit:  I see someone added the death toll. Seems to me this article still doesn't give the full perspective one would expect in an encyclopedia   Also,  this sentence "....with a surface wave magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum MSK intensity of X (Devastating)" may be confusing, even if true. How is 6.8 = to "devastating?" I'm wondering if that's a contradiction or not?? Chris874664 (talk) 01:23, 31 May 2017 (UTC)-- 05:36, 29 May 2017 (UTC)