Mother Nature can destroy anything
Of course, Mother Nature can destroy any power plant-- earthquake, tsunami, meteor strike-- whether it is a nuclear power plant, a coal plant, or a natural gas plant, or an oil refinery-- and it is equally important to realize that low-level radiation is like any other elemental toxin-- mercury, lead, arsenic, selenium-- all of which (along with low-level radiation in the form of thorium and uranium dust) are emitted by coal and petroleum energy sources during their normal operation. The view that low-level radioactive elements are somehow infinitely more toxic than other heavy metal elements is mistaken-- lead, arsenic, mercury, thallium all can cause cancer in high enough concentrations just as uranium, thorium, plutonium, caesiam-137, and strontium-90 can. The question is how much is released, how fast it is released, how close to population centers, and how long does it take to clean up. So far, the reports suggest that the Fukushima cleanup will be very expensive, but that any increase in cancer rates in Japan will be too small statistically to measure. That's not an excuse for complacency, but it's also not a good reason to go bonzai and give up on the best energy source in Japan.
The other nuclear reactors in Japan are newer, safer, and better prepared than Fukushima Daiichi was to control radiation emissions in the next Big One. That's not a 100% guarantee, but it's better than turning off the lights and letting the nation slip slowly into economic oblivion. No energy source is perfectly safe; statistically speaking, nuclear energy (even in Japan) is still the safest baseload power source available. Only when people learn to understand data can they make an informed decision about what is safe or unsafe... the journalists unfortunately are much more interested in selling a sensational story than in evaluating data accurately or rationally.
