An interim report is expected shortly from a government panel tasked with drawing up compensation guidelines for damages caused by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The extent of compensation payments will be set for each category of damages, but many cases cannot be easily categorized.
An interim report is expected shortly from a government panel tasked with drawing up compensation guidelines for damages caused by the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The extent of compensation payments will be set for each category of damages, but many cases cannot be easily categorized.
A perfect case in point is how to compensate evacuees.
For people who were instructed or asked to evacuate by the central government or local administrative bodies, the panel is set to compensate them for their evacuation expenses, emotional damages and income losses due to loss of business or place of work.
But when the panel met in July, the question arose: What about people who evacuated on their own? Shouldn't they also be compensated?
Nearly four months after the nuclear disaster, the discovery of a number of high-radiation areas outside the designated evacuation zones resulted in the addition of these "hot spots" to the designated zones. This goes to show that the post-disaster confusion is certainly not over yet.
We believe the people who evacuated on their own should be compensated, but only within reason. If their eligibility is to be determined in terms of specific areas, the panel should quickly decide which areas will be covered.
Some panel members are feeling overwhelmed by the task and asking the government to weigh in. We can fully appreciate the enormity of the task. But since the panel consists of experts on law, radiation-related health care and security, we hope the panel will reach its own conclusions and at least support the government by providing insights and materials for the government to take into consideration.
The panel must tackle many other issues before it compiles its interim report. For instance, the suspended shipment of certain farm produce and seafood items has resulted in consumers avoiding them altogether, which in turn has brought down their prices around the nation.
There are also "indirect damages" incurred by tour operators who lost business due to canceled reservations and manufacturers who were forced to suspend operations because their orders could not be filled by parts suppliers.
So long as a "reasonable cause-effect relation" can be established between such damages and the Fukushima accident, the panel reportedly intends to apply its compensation guidelines broadly. For example, the panel favors compensating for drops in the prices of flowers and timber, and for revenue losses suffered by hotels and inns around the nation due to canceled reservations by foreign tourists.
We support the panel's basic policy. However, under the compensation system, which is expected to be implemented shortly under an enabling related law, we must also point out that the bigger the total amount gets, the larger the possibility of the public getting stuck with steeper utility bills.
This is all the more reason for the panel to prepare its guidelines with care and objectivity. We hope the panel will keep this in mind as it continues its work after submitting its interim report.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 3