TOKYO — The former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, who led the emergency response to the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and was accused of being responsible for the failure to prevent the disaster in as senior management, has died, his trials still ongoing. He was 84 years old.

Tsunehisa Katsumata died on October 21, TEPCO announced Thursday, without providing further details, including the cause of his death.

Katsumata was president of TEPCO when Fukushima Daiichi was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 and suffered a triple meltdown. He led the emergency response after the company’s then-president resigned due to health issues and served until mid-2012.

He then became one of the defendants in high-profile criminal and civil lawsuits seeking to hold TEPCO management accountable for its alleged failure to anticipate the massive earthquake and tsunami and take preventative measures.

In 2012, nearly 6,000 Fukushima residents filed a lawsuit, accusing several former TEPCO executives, including Katsumata, of professional negligence in the deaths of more than 40 elderly patients during or after forced evacuations following the merger, which released large amounts of radiation. in the surrounding area.

After prosecutors dropped the case, Katsumata and two other former executives were indicted in 2016 by a citizen investigation and forced to stand trial in the only criminal case related to the Fukushima disaster.

Katsumata and two co-defendants pleaded not guilty, saying it was impossible to predict the tsunami, and were acquitted by district and high court rulings. The case is now pending before the Supreme Court.

Katsumata was also the subject of a civil lawsuit filed by a group of TEPCO shareholders and was ordered by the Tokyo District Court in 2022 to pay damages exceeding 13 trillion yen (85 trillion dollars) with three other former leaders. The case is pending before the Tokyo High Court.

Katsumata, who served as TEPCO chairman from 2002 to 2008, was also responsible for damage control and promoting corporate governance following the utility’s previous data cover-up scandal. He joined TEPCO in 1963.

As head of the powerful civil service, Katsumata also held key positions in business organizations, such as Keidanren, and had major influence on Japanese politics and industry.

Today, more than 13 years after the accident, Fukushima Daiichi is undergoing decommissioning – a process that has spanned several decades and is still in its early stages.

In recent months, TEPCO has struggled to recover an initial small amount of melted fuel debris from one of three damaged reactors using a remote-controlled robot. If successful, the return of the sample would be an important step that could contribute to further research into melted fuel analysis and the development of the technology needed to remove the remaining 880 tonnes of melted fuel debris. inside the three reactors.