Talk:1988 Armenian earthquake

message: 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)
replies: text: If you have any websites that state this sure. Nareklm 22:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  initial media coverage 

message: 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. Lradrama 18:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes huge discrepancies. This article now says 25,000 but "The worlds greatest disasters" 1990  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)
thread_title:  Lives lost 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Results 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Magnitude scale 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Copypasting 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Pierre Schaeffer 

message: 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:
*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."
--Երևանցի talk  04:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  To-do list