Well, I agree with you on the crazy talk from anti-nuclear activists, and also concur that Hiroshima and Nagasaki bounced back quite well. However, it is a long (a very long) stretch to bring Chernobyl into this. That is a dead zone, with entire areas looking exactly as they did all those many years ago when the people were forced out. Sure, there are a couple of people here and there (most with no choice), but bringing Chernobyl into play does degrade your (otherwise very accurate) post significantly.
I think you’re wrong. There is another power plant very close to the old one at Chernobyl, which is currently operating. Obviously, people don’t live on the site of the nuclear disaster, but within a few miles of there, yes.
There is a very interesting youtube video that talks about the “sarcophagus” at Chernobyl. Apparently, people were even moving back into Chernobyl when the video was made back in the early 1990’s. I think they said they started to move back about 6 years after the accident.
Of course, there was a 40% increase in thyroid cancer. I suppose that some people might call that “uninhabitable,” but since the rate of thyroid cancer is not very high in the first place, increasing it by 40% is still probably not very high.