Perhaps someone is enjoying the PR side of this, but anyone with any knowledge knew within an hour of them failing to restore core cooling that there would be core damage -- (in Jane Fonda terms, a meltdown).
What the extent of that damage is will not be known for years until they can lift the lids on those vessels and have a look inside. (exactly what happened at TMI -- it took five or six years before they saw the extent of the damage inside)
To declare that the "Entire Core" at three plants has melted is pure speculation, regardless of what the MSM people say. The damage is severe for sure, but it will be years before we know to what extent.
And no -- the China Syndrome is still just a movie. Even as bad as this is, it ain't going to burn through the center of the earth. It's all over now but the nasty job of clean-up.
You have not read many of the earlier threads. The general consensus from the experts was that the Japanese were telling the truth and their was no melt down. At all. Then the Japanese admitted partial meltdown and it took us two weeks to get the whining to stop here. Now we have full meltdown in one and possibly three reactors. And the usual crowd is back to whine again. Would be nice if we could get beyond the whining to possibly determine just how far that corium will flow.