14 DAY TRIAL // The news just broke that eight US soldiers decided to file a lawsuit against both the Japanese government, and Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco, for short).
Their main complaint is that neither of these organizations bothered to provide them with accurate information concerning the risks they were facing while trying to lend a helping hand in the rescue operations carried out in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011.
Thus, they argue that the Japanese government and Tepco saw fit to lie about the radiation levels they were being exposed to, despite being fully aware of the fact that the recorded amounts of radiation were more than enough to cause people to develop cancer.
In other words, they deliberately “tricked” the US sailors into risking their lives by working in unsafe areas, and withheld information that might have kept them from getting involved in the rescue operations. Japan Today reports that these eight US sailors were members of USS Ronald Reagan's crew, which comprised several hundred individuals.
However, it seems that these men are the only ones who decided to take action against the Japanese government and said company.
The sailors now ask that they be paid $10 million (€7.55 million) in compensatory damages and $30 million (€22.65 million) in punitive damages, the same source explains.
Furthermore, they want Tepco to set up a funding scheme amounting to $100 million (€75.51 million), which is to be used to financially support the medical care needed by the USS Ronald Reagan's crew, who suffered “additional and irreparable harm to their life expectancy, which has been shortened and cannot be restored to its prior condition.”
The lawsuit was filed in a US Federal Court in San Diego, and comes shortly after Tokyo Electric Power Co admitted that the Fukushima nuclear disaster could have been avoided.