Talk:Chernobyl disaster

Grammar

The fist sentence should read: "At the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat, located in the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (USSR)" instead of: "at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat, then located in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (USSR)". It did not physically move.

The section titled "Social Economic Effects" should be renamed to "socioeconomic effects" to reflect proper terminology.

minor but this is the English language page "Numerous structural and construction quality issues, as well as deviations from the original plant design, had been known to KGB since at least 1973 and passed on to the Central Committee, which take no action and classified the information." should be "been known to the KGB... which took no action"

Containing fire

The timeline says all fires were contained at 6:35 - this should probably mention "fires around the power plant": The core continued to burn days after, but there is no description what measures really lead to containing the fire inside the reactor. It just says "It is now known that virtually none of the neutron absorbers reached the core." It is not clear what really stopped the fire.

decay heat was the "fire" and it "stopped" being "red hot" like decay heat always does. With time.

Grammar edit request

There's a rather extended high-comma-count "sentence" with what looks to be a misspelling.

The expected highest body activity was in the first few years, were the unabated ingestion of local food, primarily milk consumption, resulted in the transfer of activity from soil to body, after the dissolution of the USSR, the now reduced scale initiative to monitor the human body activity in these regions of Ukraine, recorded a small and gradual half-decadal-long rise, in internal committed dose, before returning to the previous trend of observing ever lower body counts each year.

minimal-change improvement:

The expected highest body activity was in the first few years, where the unabated ingestion of local food (primarily milk) resulted in the transfer of activity from soil to body. After the dissolution of the USSR, the now reduced scale initiative to monitor the human body activity in these regions of Ukraine recorded a small and gradual half-decadal-long rise in internal committed dose before returning to the previous trend of observing ever lower body counts each year.

length of lead

This has come up before, see..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chernobyl_disaster/Archive_13#Lead_too_long

Dougsim

NPOV issues with "Disputed investigation" section.

This section comes across as if written by a pro-nuclear defender (or apologist, depending on your POV). It mentions "Moller has been reprimanded for publishing papers that crossed the scientific "misconduct"/"fraud" line." but reading the citation/source doesn't support the wording in the article. Moller was indeed accused of scientific misconduct"/"fraud but a French panel of scientists found no credible evidence to support the claim, so it seems that claim is disputed (according to the Nature article used a source). There is talk about "continuing to publish experimentally unrepeatable and discredited papers." but no source shows that there is a a consensus that Mousseau appears related to the Chernobyl disaster general considered discredited or that his reputation overall is such that all his work should be discounted outright. Once citation/source links to a guest column at AtomicInsights.com that is the opinion by only one individual who disputes a talk Mousseau gave on Fukushima (not The Chernobyl disaster). This seems sort like an add-hominem attach on the guy because of disagreement over his Fukushima talk. If his is generally discredited in the scientific community then multiple better sources should be able to be produced and cited. Finally, the section claims the book "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" been generally discredited but neither the link presented support that claim not does the Wikipedia article on the book. It's fair to say the book is "disputed" but we need better sources if you want to claim has been "discredited". This article is not the place to debate or address the anti-nuclear movement in general as there are other Wikipedia article for that. Stick to addressing specific claims about the effects of medical & environmental of the Chernobyl Disaster specifically and whether it supports any anti-nuclear arguments or not. Leave the general arguments pro and con about nuclear energy in general to the article on Nuclear Energy, Anti-Nuclear movement, Nuclear Energy Safety, etc. - Notcharliechaplin (talk) 22:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak to the paper in question, but the linked article concerning the Yabloko report has adequate support for calling this non-peer-reviewed work 'discredited.'Sredmash (talk) 16:32, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Factual correction request

In the section Immediate site and area remediation, specifically in the sub-section Area cleanup, the following is stated:

Although a number of radioactive emergency vehicles were buried in trenches, many of the vehicles used by the liquidators, including the helicopters, still remained, as of 2018, parked in a field in the Chernobyl area.

This statement is not correct, as comparison photos here show the field being completely emptied some time between April 2012 and July 2013.

I suggest the following re-wording of the above text:

Although a number of radioactive emergency vehicles were buried in trenches, many of the vehicles used by the liquidators, including the helicopters, remained parked in a field in the Chernobyl area, some for over 20 years. Satellite imagery shows that the vehicles were progressively removed in the early 2000's with the field being completely emptied by July 2013. 194.22.3.6 (talk) 08:02, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

There is still at least one open air storage area for vehicles left, so the passage isn't inaccurate. But it could certainly be expanded to distinguish between Buryakivka, Rassokha, etc.Sredmash (talk) 15:50, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2024

Replace "cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019" In the first paragraph with "with cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$200 million in 2024" (yeah money value has gone down) Fire1324 (talk) 23:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The article is comparing 1986 Soviet rubles to USD, not 2024 Russian rubles to USD.Sredmash (talk) 23:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we shouldn't be putting in numbers we keep having to update every year due to inflation. It would be better to just list the cost in both roubles and dollars at some fixed point and just specify that point.

That said - I can't find the source of the numbers we DO have. Where are these numbers coming from? PianoDan (talk) 19:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: per above. The 1986 exchange rate seems like it's the one to use unless reliable sources contradict me. McYeee (talk) 07:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Getting this to a Good Article state

After few years, I have come back to the article and made a variety of significant edits, mainly simplifying the overall layout. My goal would be to get this article to a state where it can be nominated to a Good Article and a Featured Article - seems worthwhile given the importance of the event as well as this article being in the Top 100 visited articles.

I'm not sure how much time I can invest into this of course, but seeing a variety of activity from others recently inspired me and I thought I'd start a collaborative checklist below. Feel free to edit it further, or cross out things that are done!

• Update the Background with key information about RBMK and the ChNPP.
• Update the Impact section with information about impact on Soviet Union (some of it may be moved from the Socio-economic impact section?)
• Reconcile the Long-term effects section with the Effects of the Chernobyl disaster article. There is significant overlap but also differences, and I believe the section would benefit from trimming down details.
  • Pet peeve: The table in Release and spread of radioactive materials; moreover it omits many countries, the primary source of the secondary source cited has more lines, but I think a map would be better. The popular one seems copyrighted and I'm not sure if it'd fall under a non-free use exception, I tried to ask the EC for permission... Pasky (talk) 17:10, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
• Revisit each remaining section with further-information or main-article link and make sure that each such section only provides key summary in the main article and details are moved to the specialized article.

Pasky (talk) 17:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)