I think we still remember Fukushima just fine at the moment. Chernobyl happened 20 years before, and had also some extra component of "media interest", being in

I think we still remember Fukushima just fine at the moment. Chernobyl happened 20 years before, and had also some extra component of "media interest", being in the USSR at a particular point in time. And also a lot of initial secrecy, which made everyone extremely nervous. In terms of "nuclear disaster", Chernobyl was also several orders of magnitude bigger. Fukushima was the product of a HUGE natural disaster (an earthquake and tsunami) that killed 15K people, and the effect of nuclear power plant problem has been pretty limited compared with that. Chernobyl was solely a problem on the power plant that produced everything, including actual deaths by radiation, the permanent evacuation of a whole town, involvement of a lot of workers that received quite high radiation levels, and a measurable lasting effect on the surroundings. It also was pretty close to be a much bigger problem. They are both very very important nuclear incidents which should be taken seriously. And they are remembered because of that. Chernobyl, though, was much more dangerous and uncontrolled. In the big scheme of things, they are dwarfed in impact for huge natural disasters like Haiti's earthquake in 2010 or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Nuclear power and radiation has this especial meaning for us that makes us fear it more than other things.