I would rather live next door to a nuclear plant in an earthquake and tsunami that to live next door to a coal plant during the same catastrophe.
The ash is more radioactive than most nuclear waste is and there's a whole lot more of it to contain.
The ash is more radioactive than most nuclear waste is and there's a whole lot more of it to contain.
The question is if it's safer to be next to a nuclear meltdown or a burning coal plant, not whether portions of the waste of both plants during normal operations are more or less radioactive than each other.
Heavy metals from the ash would be a lot more hazardous in the short term than the radiation unless you were standing on top of the reactor.