TEPCO pays damages in suit over Fukushima farmer's suicide, deems apology unnecessary

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) owner and operator of the faulty Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture settled a lawsuit Tuesday, paying a nominal sum to the family of a local farmer who committed suicide owing to the multiple meltdowns in 2011 ruining his business.

At the Tokyo District Court the embattled utility possibly paid somewhere in the region of 128 million yen (1 million U.S. dollars) in damages to the farmer's family in damages, although the exact amount remains sealed, lawyers said.

TEPCO, however, refused to apologize to the family of the deceased, Shigekiyo Kanno, who died aged 54, with lawyers saying that TEPCO would admit a "causal" link between Kanno taking his own life and the nuclear disaster, and believed that as the damages paid were found to be satisfactory by the deceased's family, an apology was deemed necessary.

The case against TEPCO claimed that life became untenable for Kanno, the owner of 40 cows in Soma City, in Fukushima Prefecture, located about 50 km from the faulty nuclear plant, as his business was wiped out by milk shipments from his farm being halted following fears of contamination from the leaking plant.

Kanno, according to court records, feared he could not repay loans he was accountable for and killed himself in a barn in 2011, leaving a message on the barn's wall stating: "If only there was no nuclear power plant. I no longer have the spirit to work."

His wife and children filed the suit in May 2013 claiming that their husband and father's death was caused by the nuclear disaster and the deceased not being able to see a viable future in the irradiated city, with a sense of despair and hopelessness driving him to take his own life.

Local news sources said Tuesday that Kanno's widow, 37, released a statement after the hearing stating "I am not fully satisfied with the content of the settlement, but I've decided to resolve the issue to return to a peaceful life as soon as possible" .

She added "I never want this kind of sad thing to happen again to anyone else".