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YOKOHAMA – On 20 February, the district court ordered the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. to jointly pay 420,000 yen ($ 3.79 million) in damages to those evacuated during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. March 2011.
It held the two parties responsible for the triple meltdown of the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear plant, triggered by the earthquake and tsunami that hit eastern Japan.
This brings to eight the number of decisions rendered in similar prosecutions and finding that TEPCO was responsible for the suffering of the evacuees.
Of six similar lawsuits against the government, five have found the state responsible.
Thirty collective trials were filed around Japan by evacuees seeking redress.
A group of 175 plaintiffs who settled in Kanagawa prefecture after being evacuated from Fukushima Prefecture because of the nuclear disaster were sued by the Yokohama District Court.
Presiding Judge Ken Nakadaira ordered the government and public services to pay 420 million yen to 125 plaintiffs who fled to Kanagawa prefecture after being ordered to evacuate their communities. The remaining 50 complainants fled for security reasons but no evacuation order was issued.
The plaintiffs had claimed 20 million yen each, in addition to compensation for damage to their homes and property.
The main focus of the court battle was whether the government and TEPCO could have predicted the possibility of an earthquake the magnitude of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck the station, and the likelihood of a power outage if the coastal complex was flooded by tsunami.
The court found that it was actually possible, as early as September 2009, to predict that the tsunami could overwhelm the factory.
The court also said that the hydrogen explosions that shook the plant could have been avoided if the electrical systems inside the nuclear complex had been installed in an elevated area, which TEPCO had neglected to do. .
With regard to the government's responsibility, the court ordered the payment of compensation to the victims for violating the right to peaceful life.
"She could have ordered the company to install electrical installations respecting certain technological levels, but she failed to do so," the court said.
The applicants welcomed the decision of the Yokohama District Court.
Hiromu Murata, 76, who led the group of plaintiffs, called on the government to "responsibly attack the evacuees".
He accused the government of taking measures "on the premise that the nuclear disaster is over", but added: "nothing changes in the sense that we must continue to live as evacuees".
Another evacuee from Odaka District in Minami-Soma, part of the plant's 20-kilometer no-go zone, said her life was turned upside down by the nuclear disaster.
"My job and my community have been confiscated," said the 50-year-old woman, who now lives alone in Yokohama. "I feel left behind by society. I can only feel closed if TEPCO is held to account. "
(This article was written by Naoto Iizuka and Hirohisa Yamashita.)
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