Japan's top court orders TEPCO to pay damages over Fukushima crisis

Shouldn't General Electric be paying? They designed the plants and actually built the first one. They put the emergency power underground, against the wishes of the Japanese.

pay damages of 1.39 billion yen ($12 million) to about 3,600 people whose lives were seriously affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

After how many years finally they pay?

As a result of the top court's order, the utility widely known as TEPCO will pay around 1 billion yen to the 3,546 people who lodged the lawsuit in Fukushima, 120 million yen to 90 plaintiffs in the Gunma case and 270 million yen to 43 plaintiffs in the Chiba case.

A decade later a trickle of compensation for the victims.

Make TEPCO execs subject to punitive damages and make them unable to pass the costs down to consumers.

The headline should be that TEPCO customers were ordered to pay. That’s where the money will come from.

No money is coming out of the pocket of any TEPCO executive.

Let’s tell the truth and not shallow-thinking word salads.

gokai_wo_manekuToday  07:27 am JST

Shouldn't General Electric be paying? They designed the plants and actually built the first one. They put the emergency power underground, against the wishes of the Japanese

TEPCO elected to follow the GE design and construction plan. Engineers working during the construction did voice concerns about the placement, but TEPCO made the final decision to strictly follow all construction designs without change.

TEPCO was broken into two parts. The part that pays is owned by Japanese taxpayers, the private part is doing quite well financially

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc to pay damages of 1.39 billion yen ($12 million) to about 3,600 people whose lives were seriously affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

So roughly $3.3K per person? Can they at least cover their insurance for medical costs like cancer and tumors that may appear in the future?

gokai wo maneku: "Shouldn't General Electric be paying? They designed the plants and actually built the first one. They put the emergency power underground, against the wishes of the Japanese."

In an attempt to cry victim to the nasty foreigners, as usual, you've proven how ignorant you are of the facts, and who is to blame. Your excuse is one of the reasons why things never change here. They should be paying 100 billion yen to start, and should be forced to shut down instead of asking for extensions on reactors that have been in use for more than 40 years and by agreement should be decommissioned. I suppose GE made them do that, too?

¥350,000 for a life lost. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad

zichiToday  10:29 am JST

We all pay an extra nuclear disaster charge on our monthly power bills.

That’s precisely what I said. Customers will pay.

zichiToday  09:25 am JST

TEPCO lowered the cliff height for cheaper cooling fans. General Electric recommended that emergency generators be put on the cliff.

Then why didn’t they do it? I don’t know of any information to corroborate this. Can you please provide some source? Thanks. That would be interesting.

@Peter Neil - Try these sources for the generator location and plant location/ design

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.0379

https://www.aesj.net/document/fukushima_vol1/1-32_45.pdf

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima: Curse of the Nuclear Genie

By Thomas Filburn, Stephan Bullard pp 77-85 (sorry link is too long to publish)

There was also a record of a meeting with a TEPCO VP, Matsumoto (?), who said that TEPCO were in the business of generating power from water, not paying to pump water uphill! Looking for it.

Oh... 11 years laters and now ordered to pay damages ?

Better late than never then i guess.

Geeze !

The customers are paying themselves. It is like a tax refund!

gokai_wo_manekuToday  07:27 am JST

Shouldn't General Electric be paying? They designed the plants and actually built the first one. They put the emergency power underground, against the wishes of the Japanese.

The independent commission investigating what happened at the Fukuoka nuclear reactor clearly stated it was a man-made accident and nothing to do with the equipment. It was TEPCO's management and incompetence that was responsible. Have you ever read it? It's in both English and Japanese.

https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/fukushima/naiic_report.pdf

Why would GE be remotely responsible. It was TEPCO's decision. GE simply sold them the equipment.

So does that mean we should expect an increase in our electricity bill to compensate for this?

I wonder if family members of the plaintiffs are allowed to collect the money in the case they are deceased. Or, will the government lock people up if they try to cash the check?

After WWII, the US pressured Japan to build nuclear reactors to help expand the US nuclear energy industry (in Fukushima's case, General Electric). Why the US would push nuclear reactors on such an earthquake prone country as Japan is beyond me. Oh yeah, the money.

Thank you Judges, ""And Justice For All""

That amount is peanuts to TEPCO and it is not even their own pocket money!

The figures astound me:

1) only 3600 people whose lives were significantly affected. Really?

2) only $US12 million to go around (from an energy giant). Serious?

3) 10 years later.

And no apology in sight.

Too little, too late.