Court orders govʼt, TEPCO to pay damages over N-accident

October 10, 2017

FUKUSHIMA- A Japanese court on Tuesday ordered the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. to pay a total of 500 million yen in damages to evacuees from the March 2011 triple meltdown at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

In a lawsuit filed with Fukushima District Court in March 2013, some 3,800 residents in Fukushima and neighboring prefectures in northeastern Japan demanded that the government and TEPCO reduce radiation at their areas of residence to levels before the nuclear accident and pay some 16 billion yen in damages.

In his ruling, presiding Judge Hideki Kanazawa ordered the government and TEPCO to pay 250 million yen each in damages to a total of some 2,900 of the plaintiffs.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' petition for cutting radiation levels.

This is the third ruling in some 30 similar lawsuits nationwide and the second one recognizing the government's responsibility for damages. Tuesday's ruling may affect the remaining suits as the latest case involves the largest number of plaintiffs, observers said.

Kanazawa said the nuclear accident could have been prevented, noting that the government could have foreseen the kind of tsunami that crippled the plant based on tsunami predictions released by a government agency in July 2002. Jiji Press