I don't think the government is going to be asking the residents to move back there anytime soon. So it will certainly be another ghost town like Pripyat IMO.
Actually Pripyat was much much worst than this, as they can still go without full protection gear, as long as they don't stay too long.
Well, I think they will have to move for sure, even if the town isn't badly affected. This is because the nuclear plant is far from stable. They still have to fix the pumps and make sure the plugged leak stays plugged. It will take many more weeks or months before the issue is settled. So I think the residents will have to relocate - how long can they wait for the power company to fix the nuclear plant and clean up the mess?
Never expected it to be this bad, I thought a week ago it was mentioned that they finally sealed the plant...
They sealed the leak, but they haven't been able to fix the pumps yet because I think the basement is submerged in radioactive water, and they have to keep pouring water in to keep the rods cool. Still, it's much better than before when there was a danger of a complete meltdown of the rods and a leak that "refused" to be sealed.
Well, that's just a classification. I think they hit 7 a long time ago, and they are only updating the classification now. However, we have to keep in mind that it is really quite different from Chernobyl. For example, the total amount of radioactive materials released from Fukushima is only 10% of what was released at Chernobyl, even though both are classified as Level 7 incidents.