It may be sensationalism but those of us FReepers who did initial FR-looksies into this last year came to appreciate that there are decades worth of spent rods stored onsite, in pools two stories above the damaged reactors. And if the rods in the pools are not continually covered in water they will burn and meltdown “OUT IN THE OPEN AIR”.
Btw, open air storage only works when rods are separated from each other. The problem with the pools is that the rods are bunched together and require a constant pool of water to keep from overheating, burning and releasing fine particulate radioactive smoke into the air. Like the smoke emitted by the burning reactors the first six months.
So yes, if a spent containment pool(s) is holed and not retaining water the rods will burn and the potential radiation release is many times what was released in the initial reactor meltdowns.
I worked at the Trojan Nuclear plant which was shutdown in March, 1993, and the reactor fuel rods transferred to the spent fuel pool.
Within a few years, I know it was before 2000, the fuel rods were moved to outside storage in free air.
I don’t know if they are still stored there, or not.