There are always doomsayers on everything, almost everyday. You know what? There was, is, and WILL ALWAYS BE case, where reality is closer to worst fear than it’s to best hope.
Yes, in a nutshell, LYW’s “prediction” was the most severe among regular posters on this forum. However, as the key word of “Chernobyl” matches, we shall take into perspective what the contents are associated with that word “Chernobyl”. In LYW’s posts, he painted a scary picture with noticeable Schadenfreude about the aftermath – heavy life losses and the whole island even the country becomes unlivable, and radiation will spread across the ocean uncontrollably to the States, and further impact life beings here. Now, I haven’t seen that kind of prediction with certainty from any reliable sources. I am not saying it’s not going to happen for sure, but no evidence or reliable claim has been shown/made, such dire picture will be probable.
The disaster in Japan was not just a big earth quake, it’s a perfect storm – huge earthquake, plus tsunami plus reactor leak, plus A FEW DOZENS BIG AFTERSHOCKS, and they just experienced another 2 two days ago. There was no precedence, not even close. For those who “predicted” how certain government would do much better about electricity etc, I just don’t get how they reached that conclusion. Based on what? What happened in 汶川? Single big earthquake with smaller scale and much less and much smaller aftershocks, knocked off all schools and most of the buildings (except for a few government buildings), with many more live losses, and the military had huge difficulty to fly choppers over in the beginning? What exactly was done better? Military personal marched en masse? It wasn’t about China vs Japan to start with. It makes me puke, that people are actually using the tragedy in 汶川 as a spin tool, to make it somehow a big achievement of the government. There was NO sliver lining. NONE.
What happened in Japan, especially what the government did after the disaster at the reactor meltdown – be it withholding truth to public and international community, or slow action and losing control over the private company during national disaster, was heavily criticized, and rightfully so. However, as many has stated much earlier, the construction quality of buildings where people live, and the calmness among general public facing such dreadful nature disaster, were second to none in the world. That’s very commendable in my opinion. That was actually what some posters were all praising for. If some people don’t agree, so be it.
As for predictions, frankly, I didn’t see any prediction except for worst case doomsayers. All I saw was excerpts from news outlets, and best hopes. If I am mistaking, there is that wonderful search function provided by WXC to prove me wrong.