Not meaning to make light of that and all, but how does that compare to fallout from above ground atomic tests? Some of us here are from that era, and probably had Strontium 90 in our bones.
All i can tell you, is that in Italy, there has been afterwards a rise in tumours, particularly of thyroid gland tumours in young ages and birth malformations. Not that there has been some systematic study, as there was no political interest to do so and after some years everything was "forgotten". And we weren't one of the particularly involved countries (mostly the northeast was).
From what i recall, much like @Cumberland Sausage said, the worst case, was for people who were exposed for long under rain and even worse, for those who ate food (especially vegetables and fruits) that were under the rain in these days, because through them, you were introducing radioactive particles inside your organism, which was worse than taking radiation from the outside, because i think most of the alfa particles couldn't penetrate the skin when irradiated from distance, but once inside, they could cause damage alright.
I don't know how it compares to radiation after an atomic bomb test, but i would be surprised, if every time you had a bomb test, there was a radioactive cloud covering the entire US and people were just going their business like nothing happened.
Last edited: