The only reason it killed so many was the poop grade soviet response. Men were cheaper than machines.
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Admetus@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Quoting 5k deaths when Chernobyl was a single incident probably contributing to most of them.
Forester@pawb.social 3 days ago
emmy5482@quokk.au 2 days ago
That’s definitely not accurate. For example, stopping the water table from being as polluted under the conditions meant having to use people.
They could also have just not bothered.
I’m not saying that their response didn’t kill a lot of people.
It did.
I’m saying it could have been much worse sr
Forester@pawb.social 2 days ago
It was pants on head stupid start to finish. The miners aren’t the ones who died of radiation poisoning the cleanup crew was who got fried.
emmy5482@quokk.au 2 days ago
Well, wet dirt is permeable and my understanding was they needed to stop the radioactive material leeching into the water table. Which would have caused radiation poisoning and cancer rates to soar for much of Europe.
It also was not stupid from start to finish. If it were, it would still be uncovered and half of Europe would need to be evacuated.
IMO the biggest problems were to do with the reactor design being secret. That and the attempted coverup afterwards. But I wouldn’t consider the cleanup to have been incompetent. The Chernobyl liquidators have been widely credited with limiting the effects of the disaster.
Thorry@feddit.org 2 days ago
Only 30 people actually died as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster. It’s very hard to know how much indirect deaths however. Or the overall impact on health for people in Europe. Estimations range from 4000 (WHO) up to 16000. No idea what OPs numbers include or don’t include.
Admetus@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
That’s the trouble, just under 5000 deaths when you take away freak accidents (like the Japanese worker who was inundated with highly radioactive liquid) so those numbers must fall under a specific estimate.
emmy5482@quokk.au 2 days ago
5000 would have been a massive undercount too
marcos@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Most of the renewables count is one dam that failed in China too.
Forester@pawb.social 2 days ago
en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st…
not exactly
marcos@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yes, exactly. From your link:
That accounts for 122% of the number on the meme.
Forester@pawb.social 2 days ago
God forbid you look anything up yourself en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st…