Prosecutors again decided not to indict three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, essentially saying that the disaster was unpreventable.
Prosecutors again decided not to indict three former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, essentially saying that the disaster was unpreventable.
The Jan. 22 decision by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office rejected the stance of an independent judicial panel of citizens that former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and two former vice presidents, Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro, should be indicted on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
The citizens panel, called the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, plans to re-examine the case. If it again decides that charges are warranted, the three former TEPCO executives will be indicted mandatorily and stand trial.
A group of residents, disaster victims and lawyers initially filed a criminal complaint against the former TEPCO executives, saying the company failed to take appropriate measures against the tsunami that hammered the plant and caused the meltdown after the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
But prosecutors decided not to indict them in September 2013, saying experts did not predict an earthquake and tsunami of the scale of the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent waves.
The group took the case to the citizens panel.
In July 2014, the panel concluded that TEPCO had in fact predicted a tsunami as high as 15.7 meters based on a government organization’s forecast in 2008. The panel said that if the utility had taken measures based on that prediction, it could have prevented the nuclear disaster. It concluded that the three former executives should be indicted.
Prosecutors reinvestigated the case and solicited opinions from other experts.
While acknowledging the prediction of a 15.7-meter-high tsunami, prosecutors said the reliability of the forecast was low because it was based on calculation methods that were not officially recognized in those days.
Prosecutors also said the probability of the Fukushima plant being hit by a 15.7-meter-high tsunami was “once in a million years to 10 million years.”
“It cannot be said that it was a duty for TEPCO to take measures (against tsunami of that height),” the prosecutors office said.
The tsunami that inundated the Fukushima plant was 11.5 meters to 15.5 meters high.
However, prosecutors said the width of the tsunami was five times longer than the width predicted by TEPCO. Therefore, the utility could not have prepared for such a huge volume of water at the nuclear plant, they said.
“It cannot be said that TEPCO could have predicted a tsunami (of such a large scale),” the office said.
They also addressed the citizens panel’s assertion that measures taken against a 15.7-meter-high tsunami could have prevented the nuclear accident.
They concluded that even if TEPCO had started constructing sea walls in response to the 2008 prediction, they would not have been completed by March 2011.
If TEPCO had taken waterproofing measures for the reactor buildings, the equipment would have been destroyed by rubble thrown about by the tsunami.
“It is difficult to recognize that the nuclear accident could have been prevented,” the prosecutors office said.
Members of the group that filed the initial complaint expressed outrage.
“It is an unfair judgment with a foregone conclusion,” one of the members said at a news conference in Tokyo. “We hope the citizens panel will again decide that the three should be indicted and stand trial.”
Group members plan to submit to the panel a report about why they are opposed to the prosecutors’ latest decision.