While it doesn't take much away from the argument, it's worth noting that nuclear weapons, when they don't work the way they're intended, don't kill everything. Nuclear weapons are fail-safe[0], and it's very hard to make them detonate. A slight problem, and you have a very expensive dud.

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[0] - for "irradiated half the city, but at least it's still standing" values of safe.

Yes, that's one strong benefit they have over chemical weapons, which are basically always going to leak given time, or biological agents, which can be smuggled in a human incubator. The downside of nukes almost exclusively has to do with when they work as intended... otherwise they really are impressive products of engineering.

Does the nuclear material still react even if it doesn't explode? Like a nuclear reactor melting down.