The Tokyo District Court ruling focused on whether Tepco’s senior management could have foreseen a major nuclear accident that hit the facility after a powerful tsunami. Five defendants, including Tepco’s chairman at the time of the disaster, Masataka Shimizu, were ordered to pay the sum, while a sixth was found not liable for compensation, according to the Kyodo news agency. Tepco’s then-president, Masataka Shimizu, left, and its executive vice president, Takashi Fujimoto, attend a news conference March 13, 2011. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko/AP The plant in Fukushima, 150 miles north of Tokyo, experienced meltdowns in three of its six reactors after a tsunami struck on March 11, 2011, flooding backup generators. The tsunami, which was triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake, killed more than 18,000 people on Japan’s northeastern coast. The meltdowns at Fukushima, the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier, caused massive leaks of radiation and forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 people living nearby – some of whom were only recently allowed to return to their homes. The lawsuit, filed in 2012 by 48 Tepco shareholders, is the first to hold company executives liable for damages linked to the Fukushima disaster, which shook Japan’s faith in nuclear power and led to widespread shutdowns of nuclear power plants. energy. The plaintiffs had sought a record ¥22tn in damages. The executives found liable are unlikely to have the ability to pay the full amount, according to media reports, but will be expected to pay as much as their assets allow. Tepco did not comment on the decision, saying it would not respond to individual lawsuits, according to Kyodo. The court said the company’s countermeasures against the tsunami “fundamentally lacked safety awareness and a sense of responsibility”. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Tepco argued that it was powerless to take precautions against a tsunami of the size that hit in March 2011 and that it had done everything possible to protect the plant. However, an internal company document revealed in 2015 that it had been aware of the need to improve the facility’s tsunami defenses more than two years before the disaster, but had taken no action. The plaintiffs also cited a government report that showed Tepco predicted in June 2008 that the Fukushima plant could be hit by tsunami waves as high as 15.7 meters after a major offshore earthquake. The court said the government’s assessment was reliable enough to compel Tepco to take precautionary measures. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
