We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
No question Chernobyl was a terrible disaster. No question most of those killed by it did not need to die. And of course the reactor design was flawed. However in a country where the average life expectancy for the common working man is barely above half of the Western world. Where millions die from overuse of alchohol which is worse? The death toll from Chernobyl has been estimated to be between 56 and 1000 people. The death toll in Russia from alcohol abuse is over a million a year. At least 10 other preventable causes of death in Russia exceed the largest estimate of death from Chernobyl. Just saying...
Chernobyl wasn't even an accident!
It was a deliberate act that blew out of control.
The intent was to study the effects on the nuclear reactor of a failure of the control systems during overheating, so the control systems were deliberately shut down and the reactor turned to max output.
When it ran way out of control, at first nothing was done because it was intended all along, then when they tried to shut it down they failed and the reactor went into meltdown.
The official death toll of course is ridiculously low. Of all the many thousands sent in for damage control (mostly army conscripts) a lot of them died or are permanently disabled because of radiation sickness. Most of them were never counted as they died weeks, months, sometimes years later and the official death toll only counted those who died on the scene.