Coal is nightmare fuel.
Watt for watt, coal plants release 3x the radioactivity that nuclear plants do, through the sheer volume of their waste streams. Then there are particulates, CO2, sulphur oxides, and a vast quantity of ash nobody wants as its toxic to plants AND low-level radioactive.
Every day is 26th of April 1986 downwind of a coal plant. Especially in the developing world where most are built.
And then there's mining the stuff, a whole extra set of externalities.
By contrast the volume of waste fuel rods created by all human nuclear plants ever would fit in one olympic swimming pool, and represent a strategic reserve of future fuel once they've "cooled" for a few decades.
Nuclear fuel isn't commercially recovered from seawater only because we have higher ore grades on land. If demand rises, seawater recovery becomes competitive.
I recommend reading the full report on Chernobyl, you might be surprised how few Russians were involved. Pripyat was a hardship posting for graduates with only diversity to offer. In both Chernobyl and Fukushima, not merely gross incompetence but willful negligence and government-backed impunity ruled. And both are still better places to live than a former coal mine...