This will never become as bad as Chernobyl, the Fukushima plant was built to withstand much more than Chernobyl, and a nuclear reactor cannot create an explosion in a sense of a nuclear bomb, the enrichment levels as well as reaction process prevent that. Also, from what I've been able to find is that the water that is being released into the pacific is contaminated with Iodine-131, whats not being discussed much though is that the half life of Iodine-131 is about 8 days. The media has been having somewhat of a field day dramatizing the whole situation.

Iodine-131

Quote Originally Posted by BBC Article
Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
Tepco says the low-radioactive water it is deliberately releasing into the sea has iodine-131 levels that are about 100 times the legal limit.

But it stressed in a news conference on Monday that if people ate fish and seaweed caught near the plant every day for a year, their radiation exposure would still be just 0.6 millisieverts. Normal background radiation levels are on the order of 2 millisieverts per year.

Getting the mildly contaminated water off-site would permit the emergency staff to then start pumping out the turbine building and the much more radioactive liquid in its basement.
BBC

In the whole scheme of things, releasing some contaminated water in order to do repairs and prevent a complete meltdown is about the most responsible and logical way to handle the situation as it currently stands.