TOKYO, March 5 (Kyodo) — Forty-two shareholders in Tokyo Electric Power Co. filed a suit Monday seeking to have 27 former and incumbent TEPCO directors pay some 5.5 trillion yen in damages to the company for their failure to prevent the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant last March.
It could be the largest ever civil damages suit in Japan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said as the suit was filed with the Tokyo District Court.
They claimed that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami led to the accident at the plant as the TEPCO board failed to raise the breakwater height despite the firm's 2008 estimate that a magnitude 8.3 quake off Fukushima Prefecture could cause tsunami up to 15.7 meters high to hit the plant.
Tsunami of up to 15 meters caused by the magnitude 9.0 quake in last March are regarded as the cause of the crisis at the plant, where nuclear fuel rods melted down on the loss of cooling systems.
If the plaintiffs win the suit, they will ask TEPCO to use the money to help people affected by the disaster at the plant, they said.
Last November, TEPCO shareholders asked the company's auditors to file a damages suit against former and incumbent board members for the same reason.
In January, however, the company decided not to file such a suit, denying that any of the directors are responsible.
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