New sentence linked to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A Tokyo court found operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) guilty of failing to prevent the March 2011 catastrophe, and ordered a record reimbursement of 13 trillion yen, the equivalent of 94.6 billion yen. EUR. The ruling regulates a 2012 dispute against the leaders of the group, following the triple incident: the 9th magnitude earthquake, the tsunami that followed, and the spread of radiation in the surrounding areas.
It is the first time that the former leaders of the group are held responsible for the disaster. In his decision, the judge found that “the company lacked security and a sense of responsibility”. Shareholders, who had initiated the proceedings in 2012, said the disaster could have been averted if Tepco executives had listened to reports calling for preventive measures in the event of a tsunami; such as the installation of emergency power systems and moving to a higher altitude than the power plant overlooking the Pacific Ocean in northeastern Japan.
Three of the plant’s six reactors – units 1, 2, and 3 – were in operation when the tsunami, resulting from a powerful underwater earthquake, engulfed the plant on March 11, 2011. Their cooling systems failed. when the waves flooded the emergency generators, causing the core of all three reactors to melt. Hydrogen explosions also occurred in reactors 1, 3 and 4, causing severe damage. The decontamination and dismantling of the plant will take several more years.
“We once again express our sincere apologies to the people of Fukushima and society at large for the damage and concerns caused by this disaster,” a Tepco spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday, but declined to comment on the court decision. . The company has already faced other legal proceedings, including one from residents who have been forced to evacuate the region due to radiation. In 2019, three former managers were acquitted in the first instance. The ex-managers exonerated at the time – the former chairman of the board of directors of Tepco Tsunehisa Katsumata and former vice presidents Sakae Muto e Ichiro Takekuro – they were instead sentenced on Wednesday, together with another former manager of the company, Masataka Shimizu.
If the earthquake and especially the tsunami of 11 March 2011 caused the deaths of 18,500 people in northeastern Japan, the Fukushima nuclear disaster did not cause immediate victims. However, it is indirectly considered responsible for several thousand “related deaths” of numerous people evacuated from the region. The Japanese state and Tepco have already been convicted several times in civil proceedings. However, they received purely symbolic fines.