Northeastern Japan City Settles Dispute over 2011 Tsunami Death

July 4, 2018

Sendai, Miyagi Pref.- The Kamaishi municipal government in the northeastern Japan prefecture of Iwate agreed Tuesday to settle a damages lawsuit over the death of a woman who died in the March 2011 tsunami.

Under the settlement reached at Sendai High Court, the Kamaishi government will pay about 490,000 yen to the bereaved family of Rikako Katagiri, the 31-year-old temporary worker at a municipal kindergarten.

She was among those killed in the tsunami at a disaster response center in the Unosumai district in the city to which they evacuated after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred off the northeastern region on March 11, 2011.

In the settlement document, the municipal government admitted its administrative responsibility and offered an apology over the deaths of the victims.

The family had demanded 35 million yen in damages.

"It is significant that the city government has admitted its responsibility in the document, written that it sincerely apologizes and attached specific disaster response measures to the paper," said a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"We've fought to make sure the lives of the victims aren't wasted," Taiki Terasawa, the 68-year-old father of Katagiri, told a press conference after the settlement was reached. He added that he will watch how the city will work on antidisaster measures.

According to the mother, Nakako, 67, her daughter was pregnant.

More than 200 people who fled to the center are believed to have been killed in the tsunami, according to the results of an investigation by a committee the Kamaishi government set up.

The center was not an evacuation site designated by the municipal government.

In a ruling issued in April last year, Morioka District Court rejected the family's claim and said the municipal government had no obligation to inform local residents that the center was not a tsunami shelter.

The high court proposed a settlement in February this year. Jiji Press