Hell, Puerto Rico's being devastated by Hurricane Maria already qualifies as an event that has caused more preventable destruction than Chernobyl did. You don't have to use your imagination.
The reality is that only one kind of cancer rose noticeably because of Chernobyl, this is thyroid cancer. And note that the base rate is one per million per year, so even a "statistically significant increase" doesn't mean a lot of cases.
(I would love to be able to burn 1500 million of dollars in a concrete sarcophagous, and still have the galls to call it a "tiny" disaster in front of the investors without laughing. That would made a memorable day, for sure...)
When primarily 80+ year olds are dying from COVID, it looks worse than a nuclear accident that killed everyone.
The public health professionals generally do but neither activists nor journalists, let alone internet commenters ever does because you can't claim big eye grabbing numbers.