Eleven years after the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northwestern Japan, the country's highest court ruled on Friday that the government does not have to compensate evacuees.

The court denied the responsibility of the government and its regulators for the crisis.

It is up to the operator of the power plant, the Tokyo Electricity Company (Tepco), to compensate the evacuees and other hard-hit citizens.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan based in Tokyo.

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According to an earlier decision by the court, the approximately 3,700 plaintiffs are entitled to compensation payments totaling around 1.4 billion yen (10 million euros), or an arithmetical average of around 2,700 euros per person.

The plaintiffs had demanded compensation for the loss of their livelihood and community in the evacuated locations.

What is less important about the judgment is the amount of the compensation, which varies greatly between those affected and which is at least partially added to the compensation already paid.

According to Tepco, it has so far paid out 10.4 trillion yen (75 billion euros) in compensation to people and companies.

These payments were funded by higher electricity prices and government loans.

Rather, it is crucial that the court sees the responsibility for the compensation payment solely on Tepco's shoulders.

The verdict relates to four lawsuits filed by around 3,700 Japanese who had to leave their homeland due to radiation exposure after the nuclear accident or who were severely damaged in some other way.

The decision is likely to set a precedent for a total of 30 lawsuits pending since 2013 from around 12,000 Japanese.

So far, lower courts have ruled differently in these proceedings, denying the government's responsibility for paying compensation in around half of the cases.

After an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 and a massive tsunami, the emergency generators at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant on the Pacific coast north of Tokyo failed on March 11, 2011, resulting in a triple core meltdown.

Because of the radiation exposure released, more than 160,000 people had to leave their homes at times.

The main issue in the current proceedings was whether the government could have avoided the accident by stricter regulation of Tepco.

The responsible government authority had forecast a magnitude 8 earthquake for the region with a probability of 20 percent within 30 years.

An offshoot of Tepco then estimated in 2008 that the power plant could be hit by a tsunami of up to 15.7 meters high.

The plaintiffs argued in court that the government should have instructed the power plant operator to take increased protective measures based on these assessments.

However, the court found that even then the accident could not have been avoided because the earthquake was far stronger than forecast.

In a criminal case in 2019, a Tokyo district court ruled that three former top Tepco executives were not guilty of the nuclear accident.

They could not have foreseen the massive tsunami, the court said.

The case is pending before an appeals court and a verdict is expected in January.