According to Japanese news reports of the ruling by the Maebashi District Court in Gunma Prefecture, the court said<br />that the disaster, considered the worst nuclear calamity since Chernobyl in 1986, was “predictable” and that it was “possible to prevent the accident.”<br />The court ordered the government and Tepco to pay damages totaling 38 million yen, or about $335,000, to<br />62 residents who were evacuated from the towns around the Fukushima plant and who relocated to Gunma.<br />Japanese Government and Utility Are Found Negligent in Nuclear Disaster -<br />By MOTOKO RICHMARCH 17, 2017<br />TOKYO — The Japanese government and the electric utility<br />that operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were negligent in not preventing the meltdowns in 2011 that forced thousands of people to flee the area, a district court in eastern Japan ruled on Friday.<br />He said the damages were “not big enough.”<br />Representatives of groups that have sued the government<br />and Tepco for negligence said they were more interested in the principle of the case than the amount of compensation awarded.<br />It was the first time that a court determined that both the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, and the government bore responsibility for the nuclear disaster<br />that followed a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.<br />“We again apologize from the bottom of our hearts for giving great troubles<br />and concerns to the residents of Fukushima and other people in society by causing the accident of the nuclear power station of our company,” Isao Ito, a spokesman, said.
