The same happened in Spain in 70s, and the ecologists saved several cities and the local economy of thee entire area when an earthquake hit at a few Km of were the smart people wanted to build the nuclear plant.

So, some are brainless, other are genius able to predict the future and take the correct decision. Your mileage can vary.

So, the plan was to build a non-seismically protected nuclear power plant in a seismically active area? Do you have a source for that?

This was exactly the idea in 1973 Murcia, Spain, yup. BWR model. Same design as Fukushima plant at 30km of Lorca. Until a couple of dumb guys and a famous actor from the area see what was obvious, pick up some banners and saved the day.

The action payback generously when in 2011 Lorca was hit by an 5.1 earthquake and no central nuclear was here to be hit. None of the tomato companies that sell vegetables to half Europe were destroyed, tourists keep coming as usual, and none of the fishermen were crushed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Lorca_earthquake

A 5.1 earthquake is rather weak. This would likely not have damaged an NPP near there.

Fortunately we will never know it. The damage to homes was 36 million euro in any case, but this is not the only thing that matters really. The bad press of an European Fukushima in the year of Fukushima would have destroyed the tourism in thousands of Km of the Mediterranean Spanish Coast.

Would you buy tomatoes cultured near a central nuclear that "may not have been damaged" by an earthquake?. Would you pass your holidays dining fish and swimming a place that "probably is not leaking radioactivity to the sea"?. Most people would answer negatively.

Nuclear benefits don't matter when you have a better plan for the place. If the other activity brings you ten times more money without the risks, and without excluding the rest of the economic activities in that place, the decision is easy.

Same story everywhere, Not in my backyard protests. People get what they deserve.

A company designing potential catastrophes, without checking the most basic facts about the area and with no respect for all the other activities? Planning to build a nuclear plant in what is probably the most active seismic area on the Iberian peninsula (Last earthquakes registered in the area: 29 and 30 March 2022).

Yes. Not in my backyard.

Because sometimes, the plan is simply idiot and sometimes NIMBY is the correct choice.

We are doing really well forty years later with a clean ocean, a strong touristic sector (developed later, in the last two decades, so one of the last really wild areas remaining in the Mediterranean) and we have still a strong greenhouse agriculture sector. We don't need their pennies.

I hope this people had been be fired immediately after proposing the plan.

It's not brainless, there is a very intelligent cohort of people who stand to gain a lot of money from investments shifting away from nuclear energy into sources they are personally leveraged in. People aren't generally able to form grassroots movements without the consent of at least some of the moneyed elite.