Talk:Chernobyl disaster

The first 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"

The timeline says all fires were contained at 5:00 - 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.

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.

This has come up before, see..

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

Dougsim

Hello, I do not understand why some indications of weight are expressed in tonnes, and then translated into pounds. My idea is: this is an event which took place in Europe. USSR and in general the entire world, except 3 countries, use the metrical system. Should we transform weight measurements into another system just for the benefit of some American colleagues? What does U.S. have to do with this specific entry? Thanks Edox1999 (talk) Edox1999 14:10, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

Hello!

You might find some answers in this guide > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Units_of_measurement (sorry I can't format properly on mobile).

From my understanding the unit of measurement used first is the one most relevant to the article, with the US conversion usually included somewhere.

For example: "The cow weighs 400kg (900lbs)"

Personally, I think your argument is valid and we could convert the measurements into metric, with imperial as a bracketed addition! We just need to ensure it's consistent all the way through. Happy to help if needed but my mathematics is subpar. :•) Gromithead (talk) 14:22, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

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Under the section "Accident Sequence", in the second paragraph of the subsection "Reactor conditions priming the accident", within the final sentence of the paragraph, is a misspelling of the word "little" as "liitle". This is a minor spelling correction, but noticeable.

Change this: Unknown to the operators, this positive feedback loop had liitle to restrain it, and the reactor became highly sensitive to void formation,[22]: 3, 14

To this: Unknown to the operators, this positive feedback loop had little to restrain it, and the reactor became highly sensitive to void formation,[22]: 3, 14 ~2026-68845-9 (talk) 21:26, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Done, thanks to VSredmash. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:36, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

"Commentators[according to whom?] have argued that the Chernobyl disaster was more likely to occur in a communist country than in a capitalist one.[259] Soviet power plant administrators were reportedly not empowered to make crucial decisions during the crisis.[260]"

This excerpt comes across as anti-intellectual. Firstly, the USSR was nowhere near communist in practice, so the entire thing is a nothing-burger to begin with. If the Nazi party called itself the Equal Rights party, we would not call Nazi Germany a bastion of equal rights.

Secondly, the reference for this excerpt is an article published by The Telegraph and written by… who, exactly? Not someone with any evident expertise, hardly even a "commentator" given that this is seemingly their only ever write-up. It is based in nothing but blind faith in a capitalist organization of the economy to the point of brown-nosing and provides no empirical, nor even any anecdotal evidence to back up its claim.

Courtega (talk) 12:42, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Eastern Block countries were ruled by Communist Parties and self-identified Communists, therefore they are routinely referred to as Communist countries in plain English. So-called capitalist countries also don't practice pure or ideal capitalism; virtually all have mixed economies.Sredmash (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

No. You are wrong. If words and their meanings have any meaning to you, you do not use "communism" to describe the situation in English, and certainly not with a lowercase "c" as is done in this article.

Have you actually read the reference? Any defense of its inclusion after even the briefest of glances is straight up disingenuous. The idea that Wikipedia should even entertain such propagandizing slop is bizarre. The primary issue was, and still is, having an elite class with a greater incentive to line their own pockets/protect their own interests than to ensure the well-being of their constituents. That's what happened in Chernobyl, that's what happened in Fukushima, and that's what continues to happen now. Negligence. USSR administration did not care about workers or the actual goals of socialism/communism. This excerpt is disgusting, a borderline exploitation of tragedy to push Western exceptionalism. Courtega (talk) 14:23, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. It is a bit disheartening to see politics being snuck into a disaster of such magnitude when it is completely unnessesary. ~2026-25527-85 (talk) 04:04, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

which spelling should be used? ~2026-24990-37 (talk) 03:36, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-24990-37 I would go with Chornobyl myself, considering that it is how it's said in Ukrainian. It would also align with how several Ukrainian places have been renamed in English within the past few years to better reflect their Ukrainian identity. Young N' Brash (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Disagree - It wouldn't align with the fact that the disaster happened at the "Chernobyl" Nuclear Power Plant, and could be a violation of WP:NPOV Jaybainshetland (talk) 13:29, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

It’s extremely non-NPOV and offensive to only use and mention a colonial imposition, the Russian-based spelling of the place and events. The correct spelling is used by Canadian Press and CTV , the Guardian , CBC , Chernobyl Children International , the United Nations (A/RES/80/111, Art. 10) , the US Board on Geographic Names (for the place name, the abandoned zone, and the nature reserve) , Google Maps, OpenStreetMap , the national government , and the Chornobyl Center . The spelling is offered as alternative by Britannica , M-W , AHD , Collins , Wiktionary , and AP. ~2026-25535-72 (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

From Talk:Chernobyl/FAQ: While the standard transliteration of the city's name is Chornobyl, the name as used in the English language is overwhelmingly Chernobyl. Per WP:COMMONNAME, the latter should be used. Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 20:06, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

We even have WP:CHORNOBYL explaining "Do not use the standard Ukrainian transliterations, which are Chornobyl, Prypiat, Feodosiia and Yevpatoriia respectively, as this is not in common use" because people can't stop asking at Talk:Chernobyl the same questions that are literally visible there. Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 20:10, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Not expressing an opinion on the issue, but I do want to point out to Jaybainshetland that even in the Soviet Union, the power plant had a huge sign on the ABK-1 building that said 'Chornobyl NPP' in Ukrainian. Not Russian.Sredmash (talk) 02:15, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

It’s not disputed that the Russian-derived spelling is widely used. But it is 1) controversial, 2) there is an alternative that is more acceptable with solid justification, and 3) the alternative is used for good reasons by many prominent sources on the subject. To exclusively promote colonial language that is unacceptable in certain contexts is not NPOV and a disservice to readers. The alternative is to be given in bold in the lead. ~2026-25575-30 (talk) 16:13, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

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Please amend

A design issue when attempting to shut down the reactor in those conditions resulted in a dramatic power surge.

as

When attempting to shut down the reactor in those conditions, its flawed design resulted in a dramatic power surge.

Reason: If I have understood the main text correctly, there were potentially several design problems, not just one. Also, the sentence is grammatically ambiguous: a design error is by definition a permanent feature, not conditional or temporary.~2026-24799-47 (talk) 07:25, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

GA review