Water from the fuel pools at the top floors of the No. 7 and No. 2 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture spilled over due to strong earthquakes, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. announced Monday. No damage or leakage out of the buildings was confirmed.
Even better, the water in a cooling pool like that is less radioactive than the normal background radiation level outside the pool. (That’s one reason they use water to begin with, it absorbs radiation and doesn’t easily become radioactive itself)
While technically accurate, the water could still transport entrained fission daughter products, so there still might be a significant spread of contamination outside the pool, even if the water itself isn’t activated.
But here is the scenario I think you’re referencing!
Indeed I was thinking of that one. Love the final paragraph.
I thought of mentioning the possibility of corrosion/leaks, but I’m pretty sure they monitor for that, and (though I hadn’t remembered this) even in the What If, it says that the levels likely wouldn’t be serious.