I saw a documentary of Nuclear Power that covered Chrnoby. basically people have been living there since a year after the explosion. whole villages of peasants, with no ill effects. Growing crops, raising livestock. They interviewed a priest from a church withing in viewing distance of the pant who says he never evacuated.
In other words, Earth is capable of healing itself without no good do gooders interfering.
I’m reading a book on Chernobyl now. Some people are affected and some are not. There are obvious health problems but Russians suffer from poor health anyway.
The government tried to get people to leave but eventually gave up. They expected the people to just die off and it didn’t happen as expected.