We're all going to die!

So what exactly is going on  at Fukushima? My initial reaction was that broadcasters and journalists were guilty of sensationalising the story, of playing on people's fears about nuclear power by generating dramatic headlines about possible meltdown and radiation spreading to Tokyo, the largest metropolis in the world.
Watching the news on television, online, and in newspapers, I am still left wishing that someone could explain the situation clearly. I don't expect them to know exactly what is going on within the Fukushima Daiichi plant, especially as it seems that the authorities themselves don't know the extent of the damage.
Reading one science blog (admittedly written by a proponent of nuclear energy) suggests that the situation is not that serious.
But the feeling of reassurance quickly fades when the EU's Energy Commisioner, Guenther Oettinger (described by a leaked US cable as a "lame duck German governor kicked upstairs"), pronounces that the "we are somewhere between a disaster and a major disaster" even though, as admitted by his spokeswoman, he did not have access to any specific priveleged information and, as detailed on his CV, he does not come from a scientific background. I suspect Herr Oettinger of being an idiot.
Mind you, the scary headlines didn't stop there, with the BBC reporting that the Fukushima incident could soon be rated as even more serious than the accident at the USA's Three Mile Island nuclear plant in 1979 . Which sounds scary, until you realise that there were no injuries or deaths as an immediate consequence of the partial meltdown of the reactor core. Whether or not the accident led to longer term public health issues is a moot point, but a class action claiming damages for personal injuries as a result of being exposed to radiation was rejected by the courts.
So, we're still left with the conclusion that the situation is serious, is improving, but is likely to be a disaster. There have been radiation leaks, but the particles released have quickly dispersed, due mainly to the fact that they are of a type that have very short half-lives. And there have been explosions, but these have been limited to non-critical areas, damaging structures designed to keep the elements out, rather than radiation in.
I don't know for sure what will happen at Fukushima, but I suspect that we will see that the dramatic headlines should have been reserved for the fact that the expected death toll has risen to over 10,000, and that the lives and environment of thousands of people have been destroyed by an incredible force of nature.