Japan court docket holds ex-TEPCO execs responsible for Fukushima disaster
A Tokyo court docket on Wednesday ordered 4 former executives of the utility behind the tsunami wrecked Fukushima nuclear energy plant to pay 13 trillion yen ($94 billion) to the corporate, holding them responsible for the 2011 meltdown disaster
TOKYO — A Tokyo court docket on Wednesday ordered 4 former executives on the utility behind the tsunami wrecked Fukushima nuclear energy plant to pay 13 trillion yen ($94 billion) to the corporate, holding them responsible for the 2011 meltdown disaster.
In a excessive profile ruling, the Tokyo District Courtroom stated the previous chairman of Tokyo Electrical Energy Firm Holdings, Tsunehisa Katsumata, and three different former executives didn’t fulfil their obligation of taking the utmost security precautions regardless of realizing the dangers of a critical accident in case of a serious tsunami. It stated they might have prevented the catastrophe if they’d taken obtainable scientific information extra significantly and acted sooner.
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami destroyed key cooling programs on the Fukushima Daiichi plant, inflicting its three reactors to soften down, spreading huge radiation within the space and conserving tens of hundreds of residents from returning dwelling as a result of radioactive contamination and security issues.
A bunch of 48 TEPCO shareholders filed the go well with in 2012 demanding that Katsumata and 4 others — former TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu, former vice presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, and one other govt, Akio Komori, pay 22 trillion yen ($160 billion) in damages to the corporate. It maintained that they’d uncared for to heed specialists’ tsunami predictions and didn’t take sufficient tsunami precaution measures quickly sufficient.
Presiding Choose Yoshihide Asakura stated the previous TEPCO executives “basically lacked security consciousness and a way of duty.” The ruling famous that TEPCO might have prevented the catastrophe if it had carried out vital building work to forestall the plant’s key areas from being flooded, together with making its reactor buildings water-tight.
He stated all 5 have been liable however relieved Komori of the compensation obligation as a result of he was appointed to his govt place solely a yr earlier than the catastrophe and couldn’t have acted even when he had tried.
Wednesday’s resolution to take the plant operators’ obligation to take security measures extra significantly contrasted with a Supreme Courtroom ruling final month that discovered the federal government not accountable for paying compensation sought by hundreds of Fukushima residents over the lack of their jobs, livelihoods and communities. It stated a tsunami of that magnitude was not foreseeable even with the most recent obtainable experience on the time.
The quantity of compensation was the best ever ordered in a lawsuit. It enormously exceeded a 59.4 billion yen ($433 million) compensation order to Olympus Co. over a coverup of losses and an order to stitching machine maker Janome Co. to pay 58 billion yen ($425 million) in damages for losses as a result of extortion.
