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Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Prosecutors Request Prison Time For Executives (npr.org)
Long-time Slashdot reader reporter shared this article from NPR:
The former chairman and two vice presidents of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. should spend five years in prison over the 2011 flooding and meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japanese prosecutors say, accusing the executives of failing to prevent a foreseeable catastrophe. Prosecutors say the TEPCO executives didn't do enough to protect the nuclear plant, despite being told in 2002 that the Fukushima facility was vulnerable to a tsunami....
"It was easy to safeguard the plant against tsunami, but they kept operating the plant heedlessly," prosecutors said on Wednesday, according to The Asahi Shimbun. "That led to the deaths of many people." Former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78; former Vice President Ichiro Takekuro, 72; and former Vice President Sakae Muto, 68, face charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury....
All three have pleaded not guilty in Tokyo District Court, saying they could not have predicted the tsunami.
"It was easy to safeguard the plant against tsunami, but they kept operating the plant heedlessly," prosecutors said on Wednesday, according to The Asahi Shimbun. "That led to the deaths of many people." Former TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78; former Vice President Ichiro Takekuro, 72; and former Vice President Sakae Muto, 68, face charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury....
All three have pleaded not guilty in Tokyo District Court, saying they could not have predicted the tsunami.
I don't think the seawalls were the ultimate problem.
I think the ultimate problem was the siting of the backup generators. Had they been positioned higher, and continued to operate, the meltdown would have been avoided. They actually put some of the backup generators in a basement. This was an issue that was known about well before the disaster. There was no deadline issue involved in moving the generators to a safer location.
Perhaps it's time to stop blaming the disaster on technical issues and blame greed instead. That's why it is right that some people should go to jail.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
You skipped the fact that there's another nuclear plant in the same region of Japan that came through okay because their backup generators were placed up on higher ground.
I don't know enough about the social situation in Japan to pin blame (was it TEPCO, was it the regulatory body?) but off hand I don't have any objections to going after management on this one, and I'm pretty strongly pro-nuclear.
If there's no penalty for a screw-up of this magnitude, then what's the incentive to keep management from rolling the dice again?