Prosecutors won't indict former TEPCO execs over Fukushima

Now that is a shame. Shame shame shame

The company was warned by regulators that their defences against a high tsunami were not sufficient and did nothing. How is that not criminal negligence on both sides, the corporation for not acting and the regulators for not conducting proper oversight?

Oh, what a a phenomenal surprise. The people at the top aren't accountable to anyone, for anything.

I'm shocked, shocked do you hear?

Nothing to see here, move along. A two-tiered justice system where the little guys get prosecuted for trifling offenses while the malefactors of great wealth get off scot-free--Japan is simply keeping up with global norms.

Cue judge Dread! "I am the law!"

Warispeace

The company was warned by regulators that their defences against a high tsunami were not sufficient and did nothing.

Really? Do you have a reference for that?

sadly, I think that even if the citizen's panel forces an indictment, it will be a sham trial similar to others we have read about. The prosecutor's office will "phone it in," so to speak, and there will be no conviction. That way the prosecutors can turn to the people and say "see? trust us, we know what we're doing."

Somebody must have done something wrong somewhere, but apparently there won't be a swinging party. I suppose there can't be because that would be to admit there's something systemically wrong with the decision making process here and the old dudes at the top who make them for us all must be protected at all costs. Even the entirety of Japan and the Pacific Ocean if need be.

Now...Why am I NOT surprised !! J-Gov. and the Corporate Elite....a use, re-use and abuse system, say no more.

Travesty, a company proped up with public funds farming it's work force out to criminal gangs is not accountable at all to any laws. Power bills raising, and people still living in temporary housing...now that's Japan at its finest. Who are these prosecutors kidding, they can't find anything? How inept.

sad, they are above the law

No surprise here, there has never been any interest in Japan in treating what happened as an act of criminal negligence, which is what actually was. Doesn't fit the narrative of "catastrophic nuclear accident". Also no interest in learning why IAEA guidelines on tsunami defenses were ignored, and who made that decision.

Heard of like the Google?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8392730/Japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-study-showed-Fukushima-plant-was-at-risk.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/japan.nuclear.disaster/

Democracy at it best.

All those surprised raise your hands. Shame on you, Japan. When it happens again I don't want to hear, "hoc old we have known?" and "The execs are coalescing from certain ailments far away, bu they did nothing wrong. Shouga Nao, ne", etc

The prosecutors decided not to issue indictments because of insufficient evidence, a spokesman for Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Thursday.

So they managed to do the usual J-Inc.thing -- no one is really "responsible", and don't have any records that would indicate otherwise. Absolutely disgusting.

Force it, these people need to be in jail

facepalm! hulk one!

jcapan,

Heard of like the Google?

Ah, news reports. I prefer science.

The magnitude of the Jogan earthquake (Mw= 8.4), which was derived from the tsunami deposit inland extent and numerical inundation modeling, was too small to predict the magnitude of the Tohoku-oki earthquake (Mw= 9.0–9.1) and tsunami.

The differences between the postulated Jogan and Tohoku-oki events are large; the magnitude of energy released by the Tohoku-oki earthquake is nearly 8–10 times larger than that by the Jogan earthquake. The fault slip, which in part determines earthquake magnitude, of the Jogan event was too small to predict that an earthquake with the magnitude of the Tohoku-oki event would occur.

That's from "Assessing the magnitude of the 869 Jogan tsunami using sedimentary deposits: Prediction and consequence of the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami", by Daisuke Sugawara and his team. They are experts on tsunamis in Tohoku.

Modeling inundation and subsidence, we estimated size of the Jogan earthquake as moment magnitude 8.4 or larger and a fault rupture area 200 km long. We did not consider a longer rupture, like the one in 2011, because coastal landform and absence of a volcanic ash layer make any Jogan layer difficult to identify along the Sanriku coast.

That's from "Challenges of anticipating the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami using coastal geology", by Yuki Sawai and his team. They are also experts on Tohoku tsunamis.

So, if the scientists who study Tohoku tsunamis say that the power of 2011 tsunami was impossible to predict, then those news stories are worthless.

"The Commissions, made up of citizen selected by lottery, are a rarely used but high-profile feature of Japan’s legal system introduced after World War Two to curb bureaucratic overreach. " Interesting, perspective,... http://enenews.com/category/japan "Prosecutors declined in 2013 to charge more than 30 TEPCO and government officials who had been accused by residents of ignoring the risks of natural disasters and failing to respond appropriately to the nuclear crisis."

Spineless louts.

Japan's judicial ineptitude at its finest. Mind you this isn't the first time that does "responsible" have not been held to account (the post-war SCAP period springs to mind, where Japan got a tap on the wrist)

Way to go Japan, now we have tepco using the same defense as that being applied to the sex slave issue, we cant find the "magic documents"........

JAPAN FOR SHAME!!!

This is unsurprising, since any TEPCO documents showing culpability and disaster-preparation negligence were ironically washed away in the tsunami.

Amazing - considering that the president at the time told everyone to flee the plant, only to be called into the prime minister's office at 4am to get everyone back there to bring the place under control! Where's his jail term? Wasn't expecting much from the ridiculous 'justice' 'system' here this time round, anyway.

I know a refugee personally and what's been released to the public is the tip of the iceberg. When TEPCO first went into the surrounding neighbourhoods to take radiation readings (which would, in turn, gauge the severity of the problem and the payable compensation amounts), they took them from the rooftops of the buildings - which some 3m above the ground. By doing this, they were able to get the lowest (and MOST INACCURATE) readings possible.

What about the TEPCO-provided Geiger counters provided to residents, then? I've used one & let me tell you - they provide no data of interest. Very vague & with questionable readouts. The residents all know this.

Ah well, as long as the old farts are getting their kickbacks at the top, aye? That's the Japanese way. No consideration needed for the common folk.

@Star-Viking

TEPCO was warned 20 years earlier in 1990. Nothing was done.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/japan-s-reactor-risk-foretold-20-years-ago-in-u-s-nuclear-agency-s-report.html

This in a nutshell is what's wrong with Japan.

if they go to prison, you can see the protest banner now "Free the teflon three"

Where are the mass demonstrations outside the courtroom?

Nothing to see here go on

Can the prosecutors sleep at night now?

It isn't you, it isn't me. It's the man behind the tree.

Japan's non-accountability political culture is in full form here. The nuclear zoku realizes that if people are held accountable, the nuclear industry -- and all of the political machinery related to it and benefitting from it -- will take a huge hit.

With all the nuclear plants off line, there was a huge increase in renewables, but the power companies realized that the nuclear plants could be replaced, they would lose big time. No, better to rescue the senpai from possible criminal indictment, circle the wagons with the LDP zoku members defending you, and go back whole hog to nukes.

Marcelito,

The Team for the first reference, "Assessing the magnitude of the 869 Jogan tsunami using sedimentary deposits: Prediction and consequence of the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami", were: Daisuke Sugawara, Kazuhisa Goto, Fumihiko Imamura, Hideaki Matsumoto, and Koji Minoura.

They are largely based in Sendai, save for Goto. Funding is stated as:

This research was supported by a research grant from Tohoku University for an emergency field survey following the 2011 Tohoku-oki tsunami and Grants-in-Aid from the MEXT (no. 22241042).

Imamura has been working on Tsunamis for decades, and published the major paper on recurring Jogan tsunamis with Sugawara and Minoura: "The 869 Jogan tsunami deposit and recurrence interval of large-scale tsunami on the Pacific coast of northeast Japan" (2001)

Experts.

As for the second reference, "Challenges of anticipating the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami using coastal geology". The team is: Yuki Sawai1, Yuichi Namegaya, Yukinobu Okamura, Kenji Satake, and Masanobu Shishikura.

They are based in Tsukuba, but Satake is also a member of the Tokyo-based Earthquake Research Institute. Funding is stated as:

This work was supported from 2005 to 2010 by The Focused Survey and Observation on the Miyagi-ken-oki Earthquakes (MEXT, Japan)

Sawai is a leading researcher in the study of earthquakes and tsunamis. Once again, we are dealing with experts.

SumoBob

@Star-Viking

TEPCO was warned 20 years earlier in 1990. Nothing was done.

And when you follow the link, then read the NRC reports quoted in them, you find nothing about tsunamis - they are only concerned about earthquake damage to diesel generators, which was not a factor at Dai-ichi - the Diesel Generators weathered the quake well.

So I guess we can say that TEPCO did follow that warning.

This is nothing "new," as such injustices occur all the time in Japan!

This is joke !

If any of us went into a combini & nicked a beer & otsumani we would be in MUCH bigger trouble

Japan for SHAME!

As soon as other countries can prove contamination, the Japanese courts may well be the least of their worries.