TEPCO refuses to submit simulation documents

 May 5, 2015

TEPCO refuses to reveal tsunami simulation results in nuclear disaster suit

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150505p2a00m0na016000c.html

KOBE -- Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) will not allow plaintiffs in a nuclear disaster damages suit to see the results of a tsunami simulation the utility conducted before the March 2011 disasters, the Mainichi has learned.

Sources familiar with the lawsuit told the Mainichi Shimbun that the plaintiffs -- all nuclear disaster refugees now living in Hyogo Prefecture -- had requested the documents from TEPCO, but that the utility had refused. The plaintiffs are suing TEPCO and the government of Japan for damages in the Kobe District Court. The power company is not under any legal obligation to divulge the simulation documents, but "they are records vital to finding out if TEPCO could have actually predicted this terrible disaster," representatives for the plaintiffs stated. The utilities actions "are obstructing the pursuit of the truth," claim the plaintiffs.

The 92 plaintiffs (from 34 households) are demanding a total of 790 million yen in compensation from TEPCO and the government for uprooting their lives due to the radioactive contamination from the nuclear disaster.

They are seeking documents related to a 2008 simulation, in which TEPCO modeled tsunami generated by a theoretical major earthquake off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, based on historical accounts of an 1898 temblor of the magnitude 8.0 level in the same region and other data.

TEPCO, however, did not report the results of this simulation to the former Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) until March 7, 2011 -- just four days before the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. The utility released part of the report revealing it knew a tsunami more than 10 meters high was possible, but not until around five months after the disaster.

The plaintiffs assert that TEPCO and the government should have been aware that a disaster severe enough to knock out all power at the Fukushima No. 1 plant was possible. They asked the Kobe court in March this year to order TEPCO to divulge the simulation documents. On April 9, TEPCO attorneys submitted a counterargument declaring that "the documents are neither related to nor necessary for the plaintiffs' claims. The hearings of the trial should focus on whether there is a causal relationship between the (nuclear) accident and damage to the plaintiffs."

On May 1, the plaintiffs filed a rebuttal stating, "TEPCO has revealed only one part of its tsunami simulation estimates. The details of the (simulation report) remain entirely obscured."

"As the offending company, TEPCO is being called on to find out the entire truth of what caused the nuclear accident," commented Hiroki Tatsumi, chief secretariat of the defense counsel. "I cannot understand the company's refusal" to release the simulation documents.

A TEPCO public relations representative, meanwhile, told the Mainichi, "Regarding the lawsuit, we would like to respond sincerely based on a detailed inquiry into the plaintiffs' demands and assertions."

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