Tokyo Court Cuts Compensation For Fukushima Evacuees

A Tokyo court has ruled that only the operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant has to pay damages to dozens of evacuees, relieving the government of responsibility.

The most recent ruling backpedaled from an earlier decision in March 2018 when the Tokyo District Court held both the government and TEPCO accountable for the disaster. I Photo: Tokyo Electric Power Co. TEPCO ; IAEA Imagebank Flickr

Plaintiffs criticized the ruling as belittling their suffering and the severity of the disaster, as reported by Mari Yamaguchi for the Associated Press (AP).

The Tokyo High Court also slashed the amount to half of a lower court’s decision, ordering the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (TEPCO) to pay a total of 23.5 million yen ($165,000) to 44 of the 47 plaintiffs.

Tuesday’s ruling backpedaled from an earlier decision in March 2018 when the Tokyo District Court held both the government and TEPCO accountable for the disaster.

The ruling said it could have been prevented if they both took better precautionary measures, ordering both to pay 59 million yen ($414,400) in damages.

Motomitsu Nakagawa, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said he was infuriated by the high court ruling, which he called a “copy and paste” of an earlier Supreme Court decision relieving the government of responsibility.

The decision comes at a time when Japan’s government is trying to accelerate reactor restarts to maximize nuclear energy to meet decarbonization targets while seeking to tone down the impact of the nuclear disaster 13 years ago, and its memory gradually fades.

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