If you wanted to design and operate a nuclear reactor to produce an intentional massive failure you would do exactly what the Russians did.
I’m certainly not a nuclear engineer, but I have read descriptions that said the Russian reactor was literally running in a common cement building/ warehouse, with no containment or safety systems whatsoever.
The Russians didn’t design a civilian nuclear power reactor, they designed a testbed for experimentation. It also produced power, so that power was put out onto the grid.
Nobody in their right mind would design a reactor with a positive void coefficient that high unless they had a completely different purpose in mind for the facility. The RBMK-1000 should never be associated with civilian nuclear power generation, even though some civilian plants were built off that design. Chernobyl is not one of them. It was a military facility with side benefits for the nearby civilian population. Right until they blew it up.
And, if you wanted to discredit US nukes you’d do exactly what the nimrods did at TMIsland. The operating room was staffed by ex-Navy nukes, AKA cowboys. As former commanders of subs they are used to being treated as gods, do no wrong. So, when something went “bling” instead of doing exactly what the manufacturer said to do (Babcock&Wilcox) they went cowboy and re-routed water in ways sure to screw things up. And, it really did.
Nukes are grossly overdesigned. Extremely complicated instrumentality-wise, but real simple operationally: keep putting cooler water over the nuclear fuel until it cools down. If you do that, everything will be OK. It’s not even as complicated as “steer into the skid” is on a car.
US nukes are safe, so long as you RTFM!
I say this with 20+ years of design, construction, operation of the darned things.
Or build one in a known tsunami area like the Japanese.