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"'Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,' Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera"

OK, after reading the first sentence, I was already suspicious of this article. Quick tab back to HN comments seems to confirm it. Thanks for saving my time, HN.

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I have to wonder why he ranked it above Bhopal, Deepwater Horizon, or even Chernobyl. Chernobyl had burning graphite and a fully exposed core. There were also lots of people dying of radiation sickness.

Thankfully, none of the plant workers appear to have died from that, though they have more reason to fear overexposure than anyone.

Interestingly, a documentary I saw on the on-site group studying Chernobyl mentioned that most of the group died prematurely, but not of radiation sickness or cancer. They died of heart failures and stress-induced health problems.

A long time afterwards, some of the survivors saw non-terminal cell damage related problems.

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