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Comment by renaudg | Hacker News Reader

> When they start repeating again that radiation didn't killed anybody, or only one people, or whatever... they lose any credibility.

I guess Wikipedia doesn't have any credibility left then. Most of the casualties were from the tsunami : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

> "but estimated 10.000 deaths" part is also false.

Actually you are right on this one, my mistake. It's 23.300 premature deaths each year across Europe, not 10.000 : https://endcoal.org/health/

And here's the source for German plants : https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-e...

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There are serious estimates, by several international organisms, that calculated between 1600 and 2000 deaths by the nuclear plant accident, just for the first two years.

Many by the evacuation, other because the hospitals in the area closed, other by stress of losing its home... and all of this happened because there was a damaged nuclear plant in the area. Not more, not less. Most of them had a slow death instead being instantly fried, but there is nothing here to rejoice. In the end is the same result.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fukushima-evacuation-has-...

To claim that only one people died by Fukushima and compare indirect deaths by coal with direct deaths by nuclear is an insult to the intelligence, specially when the consequences are still deploying and the process is far from being over. Nuclear kills thousands of people indirectly, for decades. The nuclear plant killed more people yet than the Tsunami did in the same area.

> compare indirect deaths by coal with direct deaths by nuclear

"stress of losing its home" = direct deaths by nuclear ? That may be the actual insult to intelligence :)

Both are indirect deaths of course. The only difference is perception : this is similar to the discrepancy between the much better air travel safety record compared to driving, and people being irrationally scared of flying.

Even assuming your indirect deaths figure is true, we'd still be talking about 2000 deaths in a single incident triggered by a natural catastrophe (most nuclear plants aren't in highly seismic zones), of which there have been two in ~50 years of nuclear power.

That's in contrast to 23.000 yearly deaths in Europe alone, from air pollution from coal alone.

We could stop the math there, but what about the death toll from displacement and migrations caused by climate change ? Or actually, the existential threat it poses to the human race ?

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