Former directors of Fukushima operator sentenced to pay $95 billion

The earthquake and tsunami caused a serious nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant.

About 12% of the region was declared unsafe at first, although now it is only 2%.

A A court in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday sentenced the former directors of the operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant involved in the 2011 disaster to pay about 13 billion yen. (that is, 95,000 million dollars) in damages, according to local media reports.

The four former directors of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) were sentenced to pay damages after a lawsuit filed by shareholders for the nuclear disaster that caused a huge tsunami.

On March 11, 2011, an underwater earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan caused a tsunami that submerged the cooling systems of several reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and caused the worst nuclear accident since the one that occurred in April 1986 in Chernobyl (Ukraine).

About 12% of the Fukushima region was initially declared unsafe, although now that situation affects only 2% of the territory. Still, the populations of several cities are now much smaller than they were before the accident.

Tepco is the subject of lawsuits in court by the survivors of the tragedy, in addition to the group’s shareholders. The company is working on a long process of dismantling the plant that should last decades and is very expensive. The 2011 tsunami left 18,500 dead and missing.

AFP