Searching for "coal pollution death europe" would give:

https://www.wwf.mg/?272333/Dark%2DCloud

> It reveals that in 2013 their emissions were responsible for over 22,900 premature deaths, ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/air-pollut...

> Pollution from Europe’s coal plants responsible for ‘up to 34,000 deaths each year’

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abecff

> The health burden of European [coal power] emission-induced PM2.5, ..., amounts to at least 16 800 (CI95 14 800–18 700) excess deaths per year over the European domain.

Chernobyl's total death toll is estimated somewhere between thousands and tens of thousands: in other words, even assuming the worst number for Chernobyl, in every year or two, coal kills the same number of Europeans as Chernobyl ever did. The number may be as low as a few months.

Pollution from burning coal (and other fossil fuels, but mostly coal) kills, depending on which estimate you believe, 10s of thousands, to millions of people per year, and that is completely ignoring impacts of climate change. Yes, even when you take into account accidents like Chernobyl, and even if you decide to accept the very highest of the total death estimates, it's still dramatically safer than coal.

Over-reacting to early nuclear disasters and failing to accelerate our build out and continuing with coal for the past nearly 80 years post Chernobyl is, in my opinion, one of the greatest civilizational mistakes humanity has made.

The average coal power plant kills a few dozen people a year in normal operation with first world safety standards.

It's just that these people are spread over a wide geographic area and can be blamed on things like smoking and car exhaust.