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Japan court: TEPCO execs not guilty of Fukushima nuke crisis liability

Smoke billows from wrecked unit 3 at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on March 16, 2011, in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan. A Japanese court will decide Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019, whether three former executives for Tokyo Electric Power Co. are liable for the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns, the only criminal trial in the nuclear disaster that has kept tens of thousands of residents away from their homes due to lingering radiation contamination. (Kyodo News / Tokyo Electric Power Co.)
By Mari Yamaguchi Associated Press

TOKYO – A Japanese court says three former executives for Tokyo Electric Power Co. are not guilty of professional negligence in the 2011 Fukushima meltdowns.

Thursday’s ruling at Tokyo District Court marked the end of the only criminal trial in a nuclear disaster that has kept tens of thousands of residents from their homes because of lingering radiation contamination.

The court said they were also not guilty in causing the death of 44 elderly patients forcibly evacuated from local hospitals.

Ex-TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, and two former executives were charged over failing to foresee the tsunami that struck the plant after an earthquake and failing to take preventive measures that would have saved the plant on Japan’s northeastern coast.

The three men have said they couldn’t have predicted the tsunami.