Tokyo is liable for nuclear calamity in 2011, court rules

Japan’s government and plant operator ordered to pay Dh1.25mn to plaintiffs

TOKYO // A Japanese court yesterday ruled for the first time that the government bears responsibility for the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 and ordered it and the plant operator to pay damages. A tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake smashed into the Fukushima Daiichi power plant on Japan’s north-eastern coast on March 11, 2011. The storm overwhelmed the reactor’s cooling systems and sent three of them into meltdown, spewing radiation over a wide area. It was Japan’s worst post-war disaster and the world’s most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

More than 10,000 people who fled because of fears of radiation have filed group lawsuits against the government and the power plant operator To- kyo Electric Power Co (Tepco). In yesterday’s ruling, the Maebashi district court, north of Tokyo, found the government and Tepco liable and ordered them to pay ¥ 38.6 million (Dh1.25mn) to an undisclosed number of plaintiffs.

Only 62 out of 137 participants in the case were awarded compensation because the court ruled that the decision was based on the individual’s situation surrounding their evacuation from danger.

Many lawsuits have been filed in relation to different aspects of the disaster, but yesterday’s ruling marked the first verdict in a group lawsuit by evacuees seeking compensation from the government and Tepco over the catastrophe. The amount awarded, however, was far below the ¥ 1.5 billion that the plaintiffs had sought. But the court ruled that the disaster could have been averted if government regulators had ordered Tepco to take preventive safety steps.

“The government is authorised to order Tepco to take such measures and it was possible to prevent the accident,” the court said. Tepco said no decision had been made on whether to appeal against the ruling, adding that it would consider its response after examining the decision.

Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government’s senior spokesman, also declined to comment but said the ruling would have no effect on nuclear power policies.

Anti-nuclear sentiment runs high in Japan but the government said the country needed nuclear power and had moved to restart reactors that were shut down in the aftermath of the disaster.

AP Photo Lawyers for Japanese residents forced to leave their homes near the Fukushima nuclear plant hold signs that read ‘partially won a case’ and ‘the government is liable’ in Maebashi yesterday.