“It’s a very low level of radioactivity and it poses no problems for health and the environment in Europe,” Gariel says. But modeling suggests that any people within a few kilometers of the release — wherever it occurred — would have needed to seek shelter to protect themselves from possible radiation exposure.
That seems contradictory.
If you are only a few feet/miles from a major event, the effects will be considerably stronger than if you are 500 miles away from the same.
That seems contradictory.
Not at all!
The people within a few km of the release - wherever it occurred - would have had to seek shelter to protect themselves against the slightly higher lifetime risk of cancer. People there who didn't seek shelter but instead stood outside all day, inhaling deeply and drinking unfiltered rainwater, for months, might have a 500% higher risk of someday contracting, e.g., lung cancer, or thyroid cancer, or... - if the radiation hadn't dissipated by itself over time.
And by the time that radioactive cloud passed over, e.g., Germany, the radioisotopes therein had probably already largely decayed, the cloud itself had probably become extremely diluted by fresh air, etc. - so no problem.
I was in Central Europe back in 1986 when Chernobyl blew. Went jogging everyday for an hour... Drank a liter of farm-fresh milk (from pastured cows, which concentrates the levels of radionuclides) everyday... In terms of increased health-risk, probably equivalent to smoking three cigarettes a day for a few weeks.
In short: Modifiers like "increased risk" or "hazardous" are meaningless unless quantified and - for the layman - set in relation to understandable risks.
Regards,