Japan court orders Fukushima operator Tepco to compensate for suicide of 102-year-old after 2011 disaster
The elderly man took his own life after the government told residents to flee in April 2011, a month after tsunami waves sent the plant’s reactors into meltdown
A Japanese court on Tuesday ordered the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to compensate relatives of a 102-year-old man who killed himself at the prospect of fleeing his home.
The Fukushima District Court ordered Tokyo Electric Co (TEPCO) to pay 15.2 million yen (US$143,400) in damages to the family of Fumio Okubo, according to their lawyer Yukio Yasuda.
He took his own life after the government ordered area residents to flee in April 2011, a month after tsunami waves sent the plant’s reactors into meltdown.
“I lived a bit too long,” he told his family soon after he learned of the government-ordered evacuation from a news report.
The court acknowledged his suicide was linked to “strong stress” at the prospect that he would have to flee and his fear that he would be a burden to his family, the lawyer said.
“It is significant that the court recognised the eldest man in the village who would have lived out his final days in his homeland was hit by such a terrible tragedy,” he said.