Japan court upholds damages over student tsunami deaths

TOKYO: A Japanese appeals court yesterday upheld a ruling awarding millions of dollars in compensation to families of children swept out to sea by the massive 2011 tsunami, local media said.

In 2016, the Sendai district court ruled two local governments should pay a combined 1.43 billion yen (US$13.7 million) to 29 plaintiffs – parents of 23 children who were killed in the disaster.

The victims, from the public Okawa Elementary School in the city of Ishinomaki, were among a total of 74 children who perished in rising waters after being told to wait for more than 40 minutes in school grounds with teachers, 10 of whom also died.

The plaintiffs argued their children would have survived if they had been evacuated in time. The local governments appealed the 2016 decision, but yesterday the Sendai High Court said the lower court ruling was correct, local media reported.

“(The school) should have been able to forecast before the occurrence of the quake that a tsunami would reach the school,” broadcaster NHK quoted presiding judge Hiroshi Ogawa as saying.

“The school had an obligation to clarify evacuation areas and evacuation routes in its risk management manual but it failed to do so,” he added.

Kyodo news agency said the court increased the compensation awarded in the earlier decision by around 10 million yen.

The original sum was around 1.4 billion yen (US$13 million).

Hiroyuki Konno, who lost a 12year-old son and spoke on behalf of the plaintiffs, told NHK he was “thankful that cooperation and support from many people have led to today’s ruling”. — AFP