You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but others who have researched Chernobyl far more extensively than you or I have concluded differently. I am primarily getting my information from Andrew Leatherbarrow's book "Chernobyl 01:23:40". In that book, he states essentially the same as I have above.
However, it's not just Andrew Leatherbarrow who thinks so. All it takes is a simple Google search and you'll find reputable research papers hosted by the IAEA whose primary conclusion is that the accident could have been much worse. Here's one example: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:18009127
Popular books have the incentive to garner sales - often through dramatization - not report accurate findings. Furthermore, the paper you linked was talking about wind directions not about whether the molten rods reached the cooling water underneath the reactor room floor.
> Furthermore, the paper you linked was talking about wind directions not about whether the molten rods reached the cooling water underneath the reactor room floor.
I did not say that the IAEA paper was about molten rods hitting the coolant water. There is more than one way that Chernobyl could have been much much worse. According to the paper, different wind and rainfall could have made the disaster 200-400x worse in terms of radiation consequences to humans. To say that is significantly worse would be an understatement.
> Popular books have the incentive to garner sales - often through dramatization - not report accurate findings.
It seems like you've made up your mind and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change it. I don't think I'll bother to continue participating in this line of discussion.
However, it's not just Andrew Leatherbarrow who thinks so. All it takes is a simple Google search and you'll find reputable research papers hosted by the IAEA whose primary conclusion is that the accident could have been much worse. Here's one example: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:18009127