Japan Press Weekly

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2015 July 1 - 7 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Court acknowledges man’s suicide as 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster-related

The Fukushima District Court on June 30 acknowledged that a man killed himself due to the stress of forced evacuation from the 2011 meltdown accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and ordered the operator of the plant to pay compensation to his bereaved family.

In the wake of the nuclear disaster four years ago, the man, Isozaki Kiichi, was evacuated from his hometown of Namie, located less than 10 km away from the crippled NPP.

The man’s family in the lawsuit claimed that due to stress of living as an evacuee, he developed severe depression and committed suicide in August 2011 at the age of 67.

The ruling states that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), should have known that if a nuclear accident occurs at the plant, it will force local residents to evacuate and undergo distress. It was also predictable that some of the evacuees would develop mental illnesses and even commit suicide, the ruling points out. Recognizing that the nuclear accident caused Isozaki’s death, the court ordered the power company to pay 27 million yen in compensation to his family.

This is the second court ruling that acknowledges the causal relationship between the Fukushima nuclear accident and an evacuee’s suicide, following the first one in August last year.

At a press conference after the ruling, Isozaki Eiko, Kiichi’s wife and one of the plaintiffs, said that she and her husband had to escape from Namie to other place in Fukushima with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Noting that many evacuees are still suffering from distress just like her husband, she said that she decided to take her case to court as someone needed to speak out. She demanded that TEPCO apologize to her directly.


Past related article:
> Court acknowledges Fukushima nuclear crisis as cause of evacuee’s suicide [August 27 & 29, 2014]