I don’t know!” Former TEPCO Chairman Acquitted of Nuclear Accident, TEPCO’s “One Man’s Ramen” – His Strong Argument After the Accident

The ruling followed the first trial.

On January 18, the Tokyo High Court acquitted three former TEPCO executives charged with manslaughter in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. All three pleaded not guilty to the charges and were acquitted by the Tokyo District Court in September 2007.

The issue in the trial was whether the 15-meter tsunami that caused the nuclear accident in March 2011 could have been predicted. If it could have been foreseen, then the court was asked to decide whether it was possible to foresee and avoid the consequences of the tsunami by failing to build protective walls and other measures. The prosecution claims that 44 patients at Futaba Hospital in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, who were forced to evacuate because of the accident, died as a result of the failure to take countermeasures.

In July 2002, the government’s Seismological Commission of Japan announced that a major earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scale was likely to occur between Sanriku and the coast of Boso. It announced that a tsunami of up to 15.7 meters would surge into the area. On the other hand, former TEPCO executives insist that they were not aware of the real possibility of a tsunami of over 10 meters hitting the area.

It is not right to say things irresponsibly!”

One wonders how former TEPCO Chairman Katsumata and the other accused feel about their responsibility for the nuclear accident. In December 2012, about a year and a half after the accident, “FRIDAY” interviewed Mr. Katsumata directly. Let us look back at what happened at that time (some parts of the article have been corrected).

On a weekday afternoon near the end of the year, the man known as “TEPCO’s Don” was in Yotsuya, Tokyo. He was having lunch alone at a ramen restaurant called “Daisho-ken.

In the fall of 2012, when the DPJ administration was in shambles, there were whispers within TEPCO that the company was going to “lie low for a while,” and that the LDP was going to “take over. TEPCO executives believed that the LDP would regain power and move to approve the resumption of operations. Sanae Takaichi, then LDP policy chief, had said, “It doesn’t mean that we won’t accept the restart of nuclear power plants out of hand.

When the LDP won the lower house election in December 2012, as expected by the executives, and the government of Shinzo Abe came to power, an atmosphere of relief prevailed within the company. There were even whispers that former Chairman Katsumata, who resigned after taking responsibility for the accident, would be reinstated.

Nevertheless, it seems that the LDP administration was not able to make any overt moves that were expected of it, and when we asked former Chairman Katsumata, who came out of his house before the memorial service for the one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2012, he answered in a clear and auspicious manner.

I am very sorry for the great concern and inconvenience we have caused to the people of Fukushima Prefecture and society at large. At any rate, I would like to take this one-year opportunity to pledge once again that we will do our utmost to bring the nuclear reactors under control and to compensate for the damage.

However, when talking about responsibility for the accident, former Chairman Katsumata’s words and actions change. After the aforementioned “one-man ramen,” a reporter asked him, “Will it be easier for TEPCO now that the Abe administration has taken over? He forcefully answered, “I don’t know!

I don’t know!　I entrusted everything to the people in charge. It’s not right to say things irresponsibly!

The former TEPCO executives were acquitted in the second trial. In front of the Tokyo High Court, immediately after the verdict was handed down, people involved in the lawsuit held up a piece of paper with such slogans as “Not guilty of all charges” and “Unjust verdict.