> That's easy to say in hindsight. This was in response to someone claiming the response was correct in hindsight. It was not. Furthermore, there actually wa

> That's easy to say in hindsight. This was in response to someone claiming the response was correct in hindsight. It was not. Furthermore, there actually was information available beforehand, if nothing else than at least the data from Chernobyl, where the negative health-effects of the evacuation also vastly exceeded the negative health-effects of radiation. In fact the same study concluded that only a fraction of the evacuation was justified (though more than zero as was the case in Fukushima). And that was with a reactor without a proper containment vessel. Last I checked, the Fukushima primary containment vessels weren't breached (the hydrogen explosions blew the roof off the secondary containment, which I think was designed to fail first in order to protect the primary containment vessel inside it from overpressure). So the risk was far less. It was also a fairly slow-moving process. > The better-safe-than-sorry approach [..] ...is exactly what got us into trouble, because we have a skewed, non-reality-based perception of what "safe" is in the context of nuclear power. I can't really tell, but it seems that the danger from the nuclear plant is perceived to be something akin to that from an atomic bomb: sudden/immediate, very lethal and horrible. It's not. Even in the (initially expected) worst case from Chernobyl, the expected health effects were an increase in cancer mortality in later life that even in that worst case would be extremely hard to detect statistically, stemming from prolonged exposure to slightly elevated levels of ionising radiation. The actual measured health effects were far less pronounced than that initially expected worst case. The WHO did a report every 10 years after the disaster. Each time, as actual data came in, they massively downgraded the expected death toll from the accident. > But there should be efforts to set up evacuation plans that's not as panicked and doesn't lead to so many deaths. Yes. And those efforts need to balance the actual risk of staying in place, which is often small to negligible, against the very real consequences of the evacuation. UPDATE: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/physician-has-studie...