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Another lawsuit against TEPCO from "difficult to return" zone residents

May 14, 2015

'Difficult-to-return zone' residents to bring class-action suit against TEPCO, gov't

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150514p2a00m0na010000c.html

FUKUSHIMA -- Residents of a Fukushima town district designated as a "difficult-to-return zone" due to high levels of radiation from the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are set to file a class-action lawsuit against the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).

The lawsuit will be the first class-action suit brought by residents of a difficult-to-return area, defined as an area with a yearly cumulative radiation dosage of over 50 millisieverts.

Around 100 residents of the Tsushima district of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, are preparing to sue the national government and TEPCO for failing to lay down a plan for decontamination and robbing the residents of their hometown. Although it has yet to be decided how much in damages the plaintiffs will demand, the lawsuit is set to be filed with the Iwaki branch of the Fukushima District Court as early as this summer.

Tsushima district is a forested, mountainous area some 30 kilometers northwest of the Fukushima No. 1 plant, where rice and tobacco cultivation, forestry and dairy farming were common and some 1,400 people lived prior to the disaster.

By filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs hope to show that the farmland, local traditions, and community bonds they'd nurtured over generations have been ripped away from them and not been recovered. They will seek damages for the emotional suffering they've experienced and demand decontamination to return their hometown to its pre-disaster state.

Failure to see significant progress from the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system -- set up as a system through which Fukushima nuclear disaster victims can settle out of court with TEPCO -- is one of the reasons Tsushima residents decided to file the suit. In March 2014, the ADR center suggested a compromise in which the monthly 100,000 yen per person TEPCO pays to victims of the disaster for emotional pain is raised to 150,000 yen. However, the ADR center's reconciliation recommendations are not legally binding, and TEPCO has refused to comply with the proposal on the grounds that it would be unfair to residents of other municipalities.

"My distrust of the government has grown as it continues to turn a blind eye to TEPCO's rejection of the proposed compromise," says a Tsushima district resident who plans to join the lawsuit. "I decided to participate in the suit in order to make (TEPCO and the government) take responsibility, including the responsibility to decontaminate."

The Ministry of the Environment still has not announced a plan for decontamination in difficult-to-return zones.

According to a lawyer for the plaintiffs, another class-action lawsuit has been filed by some 340 residents of the Miyakoji district of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, located 20 to 30 kilometers from the stricken nuclear plant and once designated as a "zone preparing for evacuation in case of emergency," demanding 3.7 billion yen in damages for destroying the community. The upcoming Tsushima case, however, is the first to be brought by residents of a difficult-to-return zone.

May 14, 2015(Mainichi Japan)

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