On Wednesday, former executives of a nuclear power plant in Japan were ordered by a Tokyo district court to pay 13.32 trillion yen (US$ 97 billion) in damages to the shareholders for their inability to prevent the tragedy 11 years ago.
What Happened in the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster?
According to the BBC, the Great East Japan Earthquake, also referred to as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, occurred on March 11, 2011 at 05:46 GMT.
It is so strong that the Earth's axis was shifted by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake's extreme intensity. More than 18,000 people were killed and entire towns were wiped off the map as a result of the tsunami that was sparked and surged over the island of Honshu.
The news outlet noted that there was only a 10-minute notice to the residents before the tsunami struck the coast.
Meanwhile, the enormous tsunami at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant broke through barriers and swamped the reactors, causing a massive catastrophe. More than 150,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity as authorities established an exclusion zone that became larger and larger as radiation leaked from the facility.
More than a decade later, many residents have not moved back, and the zone is still in existence. Authorities estimate that the construction, which has already cost Japan trillions of yen, may take up to 40 years to complete.
It is worth noting that as a result of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, about 500,000 people were subsequently forced to abandon their homes.
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Lawsuit Against the Plant Executives
In 2012, 48 shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant operator, sued five former executives in civil court for 22 trillion yen (US$ 160 billion) in damages, as per the report of Interesting Engineering (via The Asahi Shimbun).
The plaintiffs had asserted that if the former executives had acted proactively, such as putting the emergency power source on higher ground, they could have avoided the tragedy. However, the defendants claimed that the risk factors were unpredictable and the research studies were not reliable.
The five senior executives are: former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, former president Masataka Shimizu, two former vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto, and ex-managing executive officer Akio Komori.
On Wednesday, a Tokyo district court has ordered the former executives of the nuclear facility to pay 13.32 trillion yen (US$ 97 billion) in compensation. However, Komori has been cleared of responsibility for paying compensation. This means that four executives should pay the damages to the plant operator.
What Will Happen to the Compensation?
Interesting Engineering pointed out that the lawsuit is drafted such that TEPCO will receive all compensation, which is the highest in Japan's judicial history. The funds are intended to assist in decommissioning the reactors, cleaning up contamination, and compensating those who have been negatively impacted by the incident.
According to the court's decision, the executives of the nuclear plant were in breach of their duty as operators to prevent serious accidents using the most recent scientific and engineering information.
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