Ex-utility execs acquitted in Fukushima nuclear disaster
TOKYO — A Japanese court on Wednesday found three former utility company executives not guilty of negligence over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster and the subsequent deaths of more than 40 elderly residents during their forced evacuation.
The Tokyo High Court ruling upheld a 2019 lower court decision that also acquitted the three former top officials of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, saying that a tsunami of the size that hit the plant was unforeseeable and the executives could not be held negligent.
The case is the only criminal trial related to the nuclear accident, in which a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami hit the plant, knocking out its cooling systems and causing three reactors to melt. A large amount of radiation was released into surrounding communities and the sea, causing tens of thousands of residents to lose their homes, jobs and community ties.
The court said ex-TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 82, and two other former executives were not guilty of causing the deaths of 44 elderly patients whose already waning health deteriorated during or after forced evacuations from a local hospital and a nursing home.
The acquittal disappointed and angered dozens of Fukushima residents and their supporters, who attended the ruling or rallied outside the court.
“I’m enraged by the judges who reached the decision without fully investigating the case,” Fukushima resident Ruiko Muto said, noting that the judges did not even visit the plant. “It’s unacceptable to many of the relatives of the victims and others who were affected by the disaster.”
The executives were accused of failing to anticipate the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant March 11, 2011, and of failing to take measures that might have saved the plant. The tsunami was as high as 56 feet at some locations.
Katsumata and his codefendants — former vice presidents Sakae Muto, 72, and Ichiro Takekuro, 76 — consistently pleaded not guilty and maintained that predicting the tsunami was impossible.
The defendants had been charged by a civil prosecution panel. During their trials, prosecutors demanded five-year prison sentences for each executive, arguing that TEPCO could have prevented the disaster had the plant installed sufficient safety measures such as increasing the watertightness of the reactors, based on a long-term tsunami assessment provided by experts. But the court dismissed their argument as an “afterthought” and said the tsunami prediction was not reliable information.
Wednesday’s ruling follows a series of divisive court decisions in civil lawsuits. A ruling last July said the disaster could have been prevented if TEPCO had taken better safety measures and ordered top executives to pay more than $99 billion. The Supreme Court in June, however, said the disaster was unforeseeable and dismissed compensation demands by thousands of residents.