Ex-bosses at Fukushima nuclear plant cleared over tsunami meltdown

Three former executives of the company operating the Fukushima nuclear power plant today walked free from court after being found not guilty of professional negligence following the 2011 meltdown.

The ruling brought to an end the only criminal trial connected with the disaster on March 11, 2011, which was the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.

The trio, including ex-chairman of the Tokyo Electric Power Company Tsunehisa Katsumata, had argued that it was impossible to foresee the tsunami that struck the plant after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.

Three of the plant’s reactors went into meltdown and forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave the area over radiation fears.

Despite a multi-billion-pound clean-up operation, thousands of people are yet to return to homes within a 371 sq km exclusion zone around the ruined power plant.

Mr Katsumata, 79, Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro Takekuro, 73, were also cleared of causing the deaths of 44 elderly patients who died during or after being evacuated from a local hospital.

Outside the Tokyo district court, supporters of the more than 5,700 Fukushima residents who filed the criminal complaint labelled the ruling “unbelievable”.

Prosecutors had told the court that the defendants had access to data and scientific studies that anticipated the risk of a tsunami exceeding 10 metres (30ft) that could trigger a loss of power and severe accidents.

But defence lawyers for the TEPCO executives said the tsunami projection was not well-established.

Before the ruling Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, had said he expected the legal battle to last about a decade because the losing side would appeal.

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“This is only the beginning of a major battle,” he told supporters at a rally. “Our ultimate goal is to eradicate dangerous nuclear plants that have thrown many residents into despair.”

More than 20 TEPCO officials and scientists testified in court, and prosecutors presented hundreds of pieces of evidence including emails between safety officials and the two vice presidents which suggested increasing concern and a need for more tsunami measures at the plant.

In September 2018 the Japanese government announced the first death of a Fukushima worker following radiation exposure.

More than 18,000 people were killed in the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami which devastated Japan’s north-eastern coast.

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