Fukushima trial ends in not guilty verdict, but nuclear disaster will haunt Japan for decades to come

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The only criminal prosecution stemming from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has ended in not guilty verdicts, in a blow to families displaced by the meltdown, as the fallout promises to haunt northern Japan for decades to come.

A court in Tokyo acquitted the former chairman and two former vice presidents of Tokyo Electric Power Company , the firm which operated the Fukushima Daiichi plant, according to public broadcaster NHK. The trio were accused negligence for failing to implement safety measures, all three pleaded not guilty.

This month, officials said that water pumped into the stricken plant to cool its nuclear cores might have to be dumped into the ocean, due to a lack of storage space for the thousands of tons of contaminated liquid. Around 300 to 400 tons of highly radioactive water is generated every day; it's currently stored in hundreds of tanks at the site, from which there have been multiple leaks in the years since decommissioning started.

Tepco has previously estimated the Fukushima cleanup could take up to 40 years, at a cost of some $50 billion.After a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck 370 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, the wave started building in height, propelled by the power of a quake so strong it permanently moved Japan's main island, Honshu, more than two meters to the east.

Sixteen hours into the disaster, the fuel rods in one reactor had almost completely melted, with the other two close behind, but it would be another 88 days until the government admitted that a meltdown had taken place, the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl explosion. Certainly, Tepco's response in aftermath the disaster has provided plenty of ammunition for critics, such as the delay in announcing a meltdown was taking place, Tepco's own admitted downplaying of safety concerns, and multiple leaks of contaminated water during the cleanup process.

 

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