At the time us eco-terrorists where being told to sit down & shut up ... TEPCO had a handle on the situation:

We Nearly Lost Northern Japan  (an Orange diary):

The Japanese government forced the utility company to flood the reactors; the company wanted to save its investment. But if they hadn't flooded the reactors with seawater, there would have been three giant explosions -- he calls it "three Chernobyls" and northern Japan would have been lost. Radiation is still coming from two breaches in the contaiment vessels. The professor flat out states that "we came this close to losing all of Northern Japan."

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre