Fukushima residents suing Tokyo & TEPCO for negligence

Via Kyodo via Mainichi: "Fukushima citizens to accuse TEPCO, gov't of negligence over crisis":

The antinuclear groups will hold a rally Friday in the city of Iwaki with an eye to mobilizing about 1,000 Fukushima residents to lodge the complaint in mid-May with the Fukushima District Public Prosecutors Office against officials of the governmental Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency as well as TEPCO, they said.

They will claim that the failure of the utility operating the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant and the government bodies to prevent the nuclear crisis left many people exposed to radiation and some inpatients dead while fleeing from nearby medical institutions.

The groups are also considering accusing those officials of violating a law on pollution causing health hazards by having spread massive amounts of radioactive substances following the crisis triggered by the devastating earthquake and tsunami last year.

Kazuyoshi Sato, a 58-year-old member of the Iwaki municipal assembly in charge of one of the groups, said he believes it is "nonsense that nobody has been held criminally responsible for causing a major nuclear accident."