The guys who are fighting to contain the radiation within that nuclear reactor are wearing cheap hazmat suits that could not safeguard them from pipe smoke, never mind the vast amounts of radiation that is pouring out of those rods and into their bodies. It's amazing to me that none of you have mentioned this. They are hopelessly but valiantly fighting to contain radiation inside an aged, decrepit reactor. In a year or two they will be fighting cancers ravaging their livers, their spleens, their lymph nodes, their pancreases. We have seen this all happen before.
We cannot even control our own technology. In my home state of Connecticut, we have two very old nuclear power plants that have the exact same reactors as the ones that are imploding in Japan. Can they stand up to any and every natural disaster? I doubt it. We have to start thinking about our future as citizens of this planet.