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Court orders TEPCO to pay over suicide linked to nuclear evacuation

Tepco ordered to pay over suicide linked to nuclear evacuation, Japan Times,  FUKUSHIMA  30 June 15 – Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Tuesday was again held responsible for a suicide linked to the 2011 nuclear crisis and ordered to pay damages.

The Fukushima District Court ordered Tepco to pay ¥27 million to the family of 67-year-old Kiichi Isozaki, who committed suicide in July 2011 after being forced out of his home near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant and fell into depression.

It is the second time that a court has determined there was a link between the nuclear disaster and a suicide, and ordered the utility to pay damages.

In the latest ruling, presiding Judge Naoyuki Shiomi said the severe experiences Isozaki had gone through made him depressed and led to his suicide. But Shiomi said the disaster had a “60 percent” impact on the man’s decision to take his own life, given that he had diabetes, which may also have played a role.

Isozaki’s wife, Eiko, 66, and two other relatives had sought ¥87 million.

“The ruling aside, I really want Tepco to apologize,” Eiko Isozaki said after the decision.

Tepco issued a statement saying it will “thoroughly examine the ruling and handle the case sincerely.”………

Last August, the same district court ordered the utility to pay ¥49 million in damages to the family of a 58-year-old woman who burned herself to death after she was forced to evacuate from her home in a Fukushima town contaminated by the nuclear disaster.

Although more than four years have passed since the powerful earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, triggered the country’s worst nuclear crisis, suicides linked to the event continue as more than 100,000 people remain evacuated in and around Fukushima.

Sixty-nine suicides in Fukushima Prefecture committed by the end of May have been deemed linked to the earthquake-tsunami or nuclear disasters, according to the Cabinet Office. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/30/national/crime-legal/tepco-ordered-pay-suicide-linked-nuclear-evacuation/#.VZMNYBuqpHx

July 1, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, Legal