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> It's many tens of thousands of deaths from Chernobyl and you can't safely go there now. There were only around 50 deaths directly related to that disaster. C

by kruczek 10y ago

> It's many tens of thousands of deaths from Chernobyl and you can't safely go there now. There were only around 50 deaths directly related to that disaster. Certainly more people died (or will yet die) later due to exposure, but these are only estimates; on one end you may find estimates of "many tens of thousands" (e.g. 200 000 - by Greenpeace, of course), on the other end you may find estimates of around 4000 by WHO. Also, it is not true you can't safely go there now. In fact you can go there for a vacation trip: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/ukraine/articles/how-can-i-visit-chernobyl-and-is-it-safe/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/ukrain... "More than 10,000 tourists now explore the disaster site every year."

candiodari 10y ago
Even from those 50, a number died due to the physical effects of walking into vapor that was several thousand degrees. Yes, they would likely have died of radiation exposure, but they survived nowhere near long enough for that to occur. It is a VERY bad idea to spray water on something that is being fed with tens of megawatts of power. This is what happens, of course, when the government orders workers into a reactor they know nothing about. Of course those were also nuclear related deaths, but ... At Chernobyl at least the radiation death toll can realistically be claimed to be nonzero, but people dying from a direct consequence of the disaster, and actually dying from radiation exposure is low double digits. People affected by it, and having worse health as a result of it MAY be in the thousands. However, after decades of tracking, it will probably rather be in the hundreds. The Fukushima disaster killed people, including 2 people who were outside of the walls getting a smoke when the wave hit and died from "sustained blood loss" (apparently they got lifted up, smashed, and there was no way to get help, given that there were thousands such cases along the entire coastline). More people died from food delivery problems following the disaster in Fukushima than are ever going to experience symptoms due to the radiation ... For nuclear everything, everything, everything is counted. Uranium mining truck crashes into a car leaving the factory (before ever even seeing the mine) ? Nuclear accident. The rate of solar accidents, on the other hand is the opposite. The thousands of dead resulting from the labour conditions in Chinese solar panel production factories ? Obviously nothing to do with solar ... The thousands who have died from pollution caused by solar panel production ? (solar power may be clean, producing solar panels is VERY dirty). Nothing to do with solar. And so on. e.g. https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/chinas-solar-panel-production-comes-at-a-dirty-cost/ https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/chinas-solar...

by kruczek 10y ago

candiodari 10y ago

Even from those 50, a number died due to the physical effects of walking into vapor that was several thousand degrees. Yes, they would likely have died of radiation exposure, but they survived nowhere near long enough for that to occur. It is a VERY bad idea to spray water on something that is being fed with tens of megawatts of power. This is what happens, of course, when the government orders workers into a reactor they know nothing about. Of course those were also nuclear related deaths, but ... At Chernobyl at least the radiation death toll can realistically be claimed to be nonzero, but people dying from a direct consequence of the disaster, and actually dying from radiation exposure is low double digits. People affected by it, and having worse health as a result of it MAY be in the thousands. However, after decades of tracking, it will probably rather be in the hundreds. The Fukushima disaster killed people, including 2 people who were outside of the walls getting a smoke when the wave hit and died from "sustained blood loss" (apparently they got lifted up, smashed, and there was no way to get help, given that there were thousands such cases along the entire coastline). More people died from food delivery problems following the disaster in Fukushima than are ever going to experience symptoms due to the radiation ... For nuclear everything, everything, everything is counted. Uranium mining truck crashes into a car leaving the factory (before ever even seeing the mine) ? Nuclear accident. The rate of solar accidents, on the other hand is the opposite. The thousands of dead resulting from the labour conditions in Chinese solar panel production factories ? Obviously nothing to do with solar ... The thousands who have died from pollution caused by solar panel production ? (solar power may be clean, producing solar panels is VERY dirty). Nothing to do with solar. And so on. e.g. https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/chinas-solar-panel-production-comes-at-a-dirty-cost/ https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/chinas-solar...