ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture--The city assembly here voted May 8 to appeal a court ruling that ordered it and Miyagi Prefecture to pay 1.44 billion yen ($13.2 million) in compensation to the families of 23 children killed in the 2011 tsunami disaster while in the care of a city-run elementary school.
City authorities planned to formally appeal the Sendai High Court ruling as early as May 9, and the Miyagi prefectural government has decided to follow suit.
Plaintiffs who attended the discussions on whether to appeal expressed contempt and disappointment with the decision.
Eighty-four pupils and teachers at Okawa Elementary School here perished in the March 11 tsunami despite having had plenty of time to evacuate and the presence of higher ground nearby. The group was swept away by a wall of fast-moving water rushing up a river.
The court ruled April 26 that the tsunami risk was predictable.
Ishinomaki Mayor Hiroshi Kameyama took issue with that reasoning at a city assembly meeting on grounds such predictions are “difficult even for experts” and to expect a school principal to have such knowledge is “asking the impossible.”
Kameyama said the argument put forward by the high court that the principal and others should have independently examined the credibility of a hazard map provided by the local authority was “not in line" with the rulings by high courts in other tsunami-related lawsuits.
Sixteen city assembly members voted in favor of filing an appeal and 12 voted against.
One legislator said the Supreme Court should be allowed to hand down a ruling “to improve and reinforce disaster preparedness at schools across Japan,” while another expressed concerns about continuing to battle the lawsuit that has caused a rift among local residents.
After the assembly meeting, Kameyama visited Miyagi Governor Yoshihiro Murai to formally inform him of the city government’s decision to appeal.
The high court ruled that the school and the city education board were at fault as they did not prepare a practical evacuation plan in the event of tsunami. It concluded that the loss of life was preventable had the principal and local authorities worked systematically on disaster preparedness plans prior to the disaster.
In the first trial, the Sendai District Court ruled in October 2016 that teachers were only at fault for not guiding the pupils properly during evacuation on the day of the earthquake--not for a lack of prior planning--and ordered slightly less to be awarded in compensation.
Some of the plaintiffs attended the city assembly's discussions to observe the voting process.
The plaintiffs are led by Hiroyuki Konno, 56, whose 12-year-old son Daisuke, a sixth-grader, was among those killed in the tsunami. He expressed his disappointment at the decision to appeal the court ruling at a news conference held after the assembly meeting.
“At the back of my mind I was hoping that the opposition votes would surpass the pro votes," Konno said. “The city government’s appeal is not justified.”
The bereaved families were upset especially by a remark Kameyama made in the meeting that the lawsuit is “not a mere issue of one municipality, but of national significance.”
Kazutaka Sato, 51, also mourning the loss of his sixth-grader son Yuki, said: “The city government, which is the main party concerned, is speaking of the tragedy like it is someone else’s business. I felt pathetic.”
Konno also resented the remark saying, “That is a buck-passing and his justification is not valid. The lives of our children are not tools (to make change).”
(This article was compiled from reports by Eiji Shimura and Issei Yamamoto.)