A recent court ruling on the responsibility of former Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives for the Fukushima nuclear disaster came as a warning to all people involved in the management of an electric utility owning and operating nuclear power plants.

The ruling effectively said they must be keenly aware of their responsibility for precluding the possibility of a severe nuclear accident.

The Tokyo District Court on July 13 ordered four former TEPCO executives, including former Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, to pay a total of 13.3 trillion yen ($95.71 billion) in compensation to the company for failing to take measures that could have prevented the 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The lawsuit was filed by a group of shareholders of the utility that operated the crippled nuclear power plant.

The huge amount, based on compensation to be paid to victims and estimated costs of decommissioning the reactors and decontamination of polluted areas, clearly underscores the huge risk involved in operating a nuclear plant.

A severe nuclear accident could cause the nation itself to collapse. Despite this possibility, the ruling pointed out, the utility’s former executives in charge of nuclear plant operations postponed taking measures to protect the plant from the predicted massive tsunami.

Masataka Shimizu, former TEPCO chairman and president, approved the decision, according to the ruling, which found these former executives guilty of failing to perform their duties and consequently causing tremendous damage to the local communities and the company.

The court decision came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the central government was not obligated to pay compensation to those who fled their homes following the catastrophic accident even though it failed to order TEPCO to take necessary safety measures against possible tsunami.

The top court concluded the accident could not have been averted even if the government had ordered the firm to build a seawall.

In comparison, the district court scrutinized measures against flooding taken by other electric utilities as well as TEPCO and concluded that the disaster could have been prevented if vital facilities had been made watertight.

This is a convincing argument based on facts. The Supreme Court’s ruling should be reviewed sooner or later.

The Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion warned in 2002 that a tsunami could be triggered by an earthquake off Fukushima.

In the years following the government body’s prediction about tsunami, TEPCO took a series of actions that raised serious questions about its commitment to the safety of its nuclear facilities.

The ruling denounced the company for focusing only on maintaining the status quo instead of acting according to a clear sense of responsibility for the safety of its nuclear plants.

It said the company was selective in responding to experts’ opinions, bent on using only elements that were convenient to the operator while ignoring those that were inconvenient.

TEPCO supported the accused former executives during the trial and claimed there was no flaw in the way it responded to the risk of tsunami.

The company should be aware that the public will closely monitor its responses to the criticism and actions to fulfill its responsibility while keeping a critical eye on its behavior.

In a report on its investigation into the accident published in 2012, the company said that in hindsight its assessment of the scale of tsunami was too optimistic.

But the report was mostly designed to defend its actions. We urge the company to respond to the ruling by making a fresh in-depth inquiry into how it dealt with potential safety risks from a broad perspective that also covers its corporate culture.

The ruling also came as a warning to other established electric power companies operating nuclear power plants.

They are stressing the cost competitiveness of nuclear power generation and seeking to restart offline reactors.

But a serious nuclear accident could threaten the survival of the company and leave individual executives liable to pay tremendous amounts of damages.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster has brought to the fore contradictions and shortcomings in the government’s traditional approach of promoting nuclear power generation by private-sector companies as a national policy, which has obscured the issue of responsibility.

The Asahi Shimbun, July 15