"How can I explain this decision to the children of Fukushima who have suffered so much?" Etsuko Kudo, a 68-year-old former resident of Fukushima, was indignant and interviewed by AFP.

"There are so many people who have had to leave their jobs and can no longer work because of their overexposure to radiation. It is incredible that those responsible for such a disaster walk away without being held criminally responsible", a- she added.

Ms Kudo stood outside the High Court in Tokyo with other activists and supporters of displaced people after this disaster in northeastern Japan, the worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl in the USSR (now Ukraine) in 1986 .

The Tokyo Magistrate's Court had exonerated in September 2019 the former chairman of the board of directors of Tepco, Tsunehisa Katsumata, now 82 years old, and the former vice-presidents Sakae Muto (72 years old) and Ichiro Takekuro (76), charged with negligence causing death.

Former TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto arrives at the Tokyo High Court, in Tokyo on January 18, 2023 © STR / JAPAN POOL / JIJI PRESS/AFP

According to the plaintiffs, who had appealed this decision, they should have ceased the activity of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant well before the disaster of 2011, on the basis of information indicating a risk of tsunami exceeding its capacities of resistance.

Several thousand "related deaths"

The three former Tepco officials, the only individuals to be tried in criminal proceedings in connection with this disaster, risked up to five years in prison.

The lawsuits against them were based on the death of 44 patients from a hospital located a few kilometers from the plant during their emergency evacuation in extreme conditions on March 11, 2011 after the tsunami caused by a strong earthquake of magnitude 9.0 .

If the earthquake and especially the tsunami caused the death of 18,500 people, the nuclear disaster itself caused no immediate casualties.

However, it is indirectly responsible for several thousand "related deaths", recognized by the Japanese authorities as deaths due to the deterioration of the living conditions of the many people evacuated from the region.

The three former leaders of Tepco and a fourth former manager were also sentenced last summer in civil proceedings, following a separate procedure launched by shareholders of the group, to pay record damages, for an amount of 13,300 billion yen (95 billion euros at the current price).

This astronomical amount is obviously well beyond their personal means.

But the justice had explained that it corresponded to what Tepco had to pay to meet the costs of dismantling the plant, decontaminating the soil and storing radioactive waste and debris, as well as the compensation to be paid to the affected residents. by the nuclear accident.

Former TEPCO Vice President Ichiro Takekuro arrives at the Tokyo High Court, in Tokyo on January 18, 2023 © STR / JAPAN POOL / JIJI PRESS/AFP

One of the thorny points of the plant decontamination and dismantling work, which is expected to last several decades, concerns the management of more than one million tonnes of contaminated water accumulated on the site of the plant, resulting from the rain, groundwater and the injections necessary to cool the cores of melting reactors.

This water was treated but the tritium, a radionuclide which is only dangerous for humans in very high concentrated doses, could not be eliminated.

The Japanese government reconfirmed last week that it intended to start this year the very gradual discharge of this water into the Pacific Ocean, a controversial project but which has received favorable opinions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). ), which oversees it, and the Japanese nuclear regulator.

© 2023 AFP