They just die slower, in smaller groups

looks doubtful

I mean, I agree with your broader point that it gets a disproportionate amount of coverage and scares people, but I dunno about nuclear accidents killing people quickly and at once.

I mean, Chernobyl was the worst nuclear incident, ya? Like, there were definitely some people who were killed right there, but it was a pretty small group, even so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster

There is consensus that a total of approximately 30 people died from immediate blast trauma and acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in the seconds to months after the disaster, respectively, with 60 in total in the decades since, inclusive of later radiation induced cancer.[2][3][4] However, there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of projected deaths that have yet to occur due to the disaster's long-term health effects; long-term death estimates range from up to 4,000 (per the 2005 and 2006 conclusions of a joint consortium of the United Nations) for the most exposed people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, to 16,000 cases in total for all those exposed on the entire continent of Europe, with figures as high as 60,000 when including the relatively minor effects around the globe.

So, immediate deaths were about 30. I mean, that airline crash we had out in those Spanish islands, whatsit called....

googles

Yeah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on 27 March 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport[1] (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife.[2][3] The collision occurred when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run during dense fog while Pan Am Flight 1736 was still on the runway. The impact and resulting fire killed all on board KLM Flight 4805 and most of the occupants of Pan Am Flight 1736, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the aircraft. With a total of 583 fatalities, the disaster is the deadliest accident in aviation history.[2][3]

I mean, that killed about 20 times the immediate number of deaths in Chernobyl. I guarantee you that that collision didn't get twenty times the media coverage or concern of Chernobyl.

Even if we use the highest estimated total death figure listed above for Chernobyl for the "increased death rate from minor effects around the world" -- 60,000 -- and I suspect that that's being awfully pessimistic -- it kind of gets dwarfed by how many similar deaths around the world we casually ignore from coal power and the like due to particulate emissions.

googles

If one's worried about death rates, nuclear's at about the bottom of the list.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh