From your description, it sounds as though you have a hole in a freeze plug. In most cases this can be fixed without engine removal or major work, though it will take some work to get to it and get it replaced. I would not run the engine any more until you get it fixed. A qualified mechanic should be able to take care of it for you without issue. What happens with the freeze plug is that corrosion will take place due to old/weak antifreeze. What may be a bigger issue here is if the other freeze plugs (ever engine has several) might be in the same basic condition, that is just waiting to fail.
You also need to discern what's going on with the fans. To me, they should be running. In most cases it can be tracked down to either a fuse, a relay, or possibly the temperature sending unit (sensor) as being bad. You can test the fan(s) by putting power to them directly.