> it occasionally irradiates a swath of land and renders it uninhabitable

The big fear for me would be that this happens to a nuclear power plant that is located in a densely populated area (of which there are many). Chernobyl was bad, but imagine the impact if the exclusion zone contained a major city.

The only real problem with the Fukushima incident was the (unnecessary) evacuation. It really would be best if they weren't built too close to where people live.

Two new AP1000 reactors are being built in Ukraine. During a hot war.

That’s how safe and important these things are.