Numbers as high as eight figures have been bandied about, from sources in the imagination rather than reality. Most thyroid cancers are completely curable, and few are fatal. In 1990, I visited a scientific research station in the Chernobyl fallout zone where their unexposed films were densely speckled by radioactive particles. The scientists vacuumed up the fallout, buried it and went about their business. The staff treated me to a picnic lunch out in the fields.
Tourists now visit the Chernobyl nuclear power station and take lunch at a nearby restaurant.
The Chernobyl fallout was generally less than the natural level of radioactivity experienced with no adverse effects by inhabitants of high background radiation regions of Brazil, Cornwall, Iran, Kerala and Sri Lanka, and even our own Kakadu. However, the danger of the fallout was widely exaggerated, leading to widespread fears of deformities in the unborn. There are estimates that upwards of 50,000 needless abortions in Europe resulted from such scaremongering. That very much maligned industry saves the emission of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. The benefits of nuclear electricity are not lost on many of our neighbors on the Pacific rim to the north.