Could the damaged nuclear plant in Japan have been built to such a standard that it would...

[sandyRoe]

...have withstood both earthquake and tsunami?

[NazNomad]

Hmm, brain food,

You have to consider the limitations of the materials available for construction. In which case, I'd say no, you couldn't build it to withstand that.

However, they do build tower blocks with tuned mass damping (Taipei Tower) so they counteract ground movement.

Now, considering if it's possible to incorporate tuned mass damping into the construction of a nuclear power plant, and I'd have to say yes, they could build it to withstand that.

Question is, is it practical and economical (or even really possible) to incorporate that technology into those type of buildings?

So my answer shall remain no, and yes :-(

[NazNomad]

p.s. I officially hate you today for putting this in my head :-PP

[R1Geezer]

The reactor building was/is earthquake proof. The problem was that the generator for the cooling system and it's backup were both swamped and stopped working, hence the explosions etc.

[NazNomad]

Could they have made the whole plant quake & water proof? Probably.

Would it have been practical, or economically possible? Probably not.

[Wak]

Considering that the fault in the Earth's crust is off the East coast of Japan and any tsunami wave would originate from the same direction, it makes you wonder why they didn't consider building the power station on the West coast of the country in the first place?
Maybe they didn't appreciate the power of the seas in the early days?

[jomifl]

Power stations are built near water so that it is available for cooling the condensers. Coastal power stations usually use sea water in a once through system. The only part of the power station that needs to be below water level is the cooling water pump. The condenser can be above water level but not to high as the pumping head and siphonic effect could give problems. The condenser could in theory wthstand being submerged by a tsunami and still work. The rest of the plant including the motors that drive the pumps could be well above the highest conceivable tsunami or housed in a way that would make thenm tsunami proof.. Assuming the power station survived the earthquake, there is no reason why it shouldn't function perfectly well. The problem with the fukushima plant is that there were many design flaws and no backup systems such as large tanks of emergency cooling water. The used fuel cooling ponds were unconventional as they were sited for user convenience rather than safety and reliability.Had they been of conventional design there would have been no problem topping them up. I think a tsunami proof design would have cost a bit more but not a significant amount.