What are the progressive symptoms of radiation poisoning?

Is it possible for there to be radiation poisoning in water and for people to die from that water?

• For a project we were given a scenario where theres a river and something happened because the fish from the river are dying and the people want to know if the river is safe because that is where their water supply is from. I was going to have the timeline be during the Cold War, where they were testing A-Bombs and then the river had radiation poisoning because the A-Bomb tests affected it. I was wondering how this would happen and what would happen to the water supply (if it was okay to drink) and if the radiation poisoning would be strong enough to kill the fish... and what would happen to the people. I've also heard that it's possible for their to be radiation poisoning in soil. And so the soil would some how affect the river. In this scenario. Would the poisoning in the soil be strong enough to kill the fish? If you answer this you aren't doing my homework. I just can't find these answers anywhere else.

• Answer:

  Usually the radiation poisoning is from fallout particles that become ingested or are constantly around the area where a person might be living. This causes long term or perhaps short term DNA and/or tissue damage that often results in various cancers, rather than dying from radiation sickness from a direct exposure to really high REMS of radiation.