8.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Japan + Tsunami and Alerts

Sure there may have been a massive failure. The case is, the 9.0 earthquake did not cause the plant to fail. It was a chain of events that due to sheer misfortune that lead to the plants to fail. I already outlined that the plant did everything it was supposed to do under such circumstances. Something that ALL nuclear power plants are designed to do, regardless of whether the plant is situated near or on a fault line. The fact is Japan in its entirety survived the earthquake, but fell under the tsunami that came right after. No one ever expected a tsunami of that size to ever occur, or else no one would have ever settled there, let alone build a nuclear plant.

Regarding the issue of putting the plant somewhere besides a coastal area. That's an impossibility, it needs to siphon water from the ocean as a precaution for any unforseen event, such as this one, as well as for normal energy production after the water had been treated. Telling Japan to go use different sources of energy is the same as telling the world to stop using carbon as an energy source. It's not going to happen unless there's no other choice. And even then it's probably not going to happen.