The forty year old nuclear reactors operated flawlessly the moment the earthquake hit. Each reactor immediately shut down as designed and planned.
The problem was that the plant designers placed the emergency generators only 33 feet above sea level, and were wiped out by forty foot high waves of water. Once there was no power, all the other stuff happened.
This was just like Katrina where the engineers placed the emergency generators to run the emergency pumps to pump out the city in the event of a levee breach just feet above sea level, and once the water wiped out the generators the city was doomed.
Or the engineers who designed the emergency power for the NOLA hospital, and placed the gensets on the ground next to the hospital. Wipe out.
We don’t have a nuclear power problem, we have an emergency generator siting problem!
So, the solution then is :
1) Place Nuclear Power Plants in places with no fault lines
2) Far away from the Water...