I'm also convinced that this disaster will be graded much more major than Japanese authorities have already admitted. But probably less overall than Chernobyl unless something else happens.

The impact will be different, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists analysis of Chernobyl. In that disaster there was enough force in the initial explosion to send the plume of radiation high up in the air and the immediate area of the plant actually received less radiation fallout than areas further downwind. In the Fukushima-1 disaster I would expect a different distribution of fallout, greatest nearest the plant and grading to less toward the edge of the evacuation zone. Of course there is the additional "spill" into the bay which has its own impact on the fisheries, and no one has really predicted what that will be. And there's thousands of tons of heavily radiated water still festering in the pools beneath reactor units 1-4 that they have to pump somewhere so they can further stabilize the reactors and spent fuel pools.

I just was reviewing the information on Fukushima-1 posted to Wikipedia and hadn't seen this statement before:

"On April 3, two bodies were discovered in the basement turbine room after the workers likely fled there during the tsunami."

Sad.

Charley Noble