Japan Press Weekly

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2013 September 11 - 17 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Another 1,159 victims of Fukushima nuclear accident join suit

Another 1,159 victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident on September 10 joined a lawsuit filed earlier against the central government and TEPCO with the Fukushima District Court.

The number of plaintiffs in this suit has reached almost 2,000 together with the first 800 who brought the case to court in March. The size of the plaintiff group has become the largest in Japan.

The second batch of the plaintiffs consists of those who were living in Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata, Tochigi, or Ibaraki prefectures when the nuclear-reactor buildings exploded. They are seeking about 4.53 billion yen in total in compensation.

On the same day at the same court, oral proceedings took place with the first batch of the plaintiffs.

Ohashi Satsuki, 20, lived in Minamisoma City and went to a prefecture-owned high school in Okuma Town. She evacuated to a nearby gymnasium after the tsunami swept away her house. She eventually joined other family members there. The family later moved to Yamanashi and now lives in Okinawa.

She was forced to spend the last five months of her school days at a different school from her friends. She said she wanted to graduate from her school in Fukushima. She is also anxious about her health. She said, “I will never get married,” “I don’t think I can have children because I’m concerned that the baby could be deformed.”

After the hearing, Ohashi said, “Whether to stay in Fukushima or to evacuate at that time was up to parents, not the children, so I spoke on behalf of children whose opinions were different from adults. I hope my testimony touched the chief justice.”