Have you seen the actual numbers of this, and seen them put into perspective? I'd strongly recommend looking at http://xkcd.org/radiation/ -- he puts the data into an easy to relate to format.
Take one of the ones that measures an hour's exposure and multiply it by 24. Or a day and multiply it by 365. Suddenly the visual comparisons look much, much different.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Assessing_th...
According to your link:
- UNSCEAR claims 6000 cases of cancer.
- IAEA claims 4000 deaths
- Greenpeace claims 200,000 deaths
- IPPNW claims 10,000 - 50,000 cases of cancer
- New York Academy of Sciences claims 985,000 deathsIf Chernobyl, the article mentions only a small number of fatalities, but I've read in many places over the years that thousands of people (especially in Belarus, who got the worst of it) have since died from cancer and other radiation induced diseases. I've also seen documentaries about the many sick and deformed children that were born since, because of their parents high exposure to radiation.
Finally, when I was growing up, I saw many affected children first hand, as a lot of families in my school at the time would host children affected by the accident during the summer.
If you were referring to Fukushima, I agree that it doesn't come close to Chernobyl (that we know of, at least), but the linked article makes Chernobyl sound "not that bad" too, which I cannot agree with.