Ex-TEPCO Chairman Apologizes for Nuclear Accident

October 30, 2018

Tokyo- Tsunehisa Katsumata, former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. apologized in court Tuesday for the March 2011 triple reactor meltdown at the company's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

"I deeply apologize as a person who served as president and chairman" of the company, Katsumata, 78, said at Tokyo District Court.

Katsumata is one of the three former TEPCO executives charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury in connection with the nuclear accident caused by tsunami that struck the plant following a powerful earthquake on March 11, 2011.

Asked about the role of president at TEPCO, Katsumata said, "Each department does its job based on authority granted, and I attached importance to ensuring that each department shares information on important issues."

Regarding the role of chairman, he said he gave advice to the president when asked, but that the post has "no authority to execute operations."

Katsumata and former TEPCO vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro, 72, and Sakae Muto, 68, were indicted in February 2016 for allegedly neglecting to take measures to protect the plant from the tsunami, after a prosecution inquest panel composed of ordinary citizens overrode twice public prosecutors' decisions not to charge them.

According to designated attorneys serving as prosecutors and others, TEPCO officials, including the three, in February 2008 confirmed that the company would take tsunami countermeasures based on the government's long-term earthquake forecast. The plan was adopted at an executive meeting in March the following year.

Based on the earthquake forecast, TEPCO compiled an estimate that tsunami as high as 15.7 meters could hit the Fukushima plant. In July the same year, however, Muto decided to put the earthquake forecast to an outside review, putting off implementing tsunami countermeasures, the attorney said.

Both Takekuro and Muto have told the court that TEPCO had not made any decision to take tsunami countermeasures. The three former TEPCO executives have all pleaded not guilty to the charges. Jiji Press