TOKYO (AP) – Several hundred American service personnel who say they became sick from radiation after participating in relief operations for the 2011 tsunami that set off the Fukushima nuclear disaster are now getting high-profile support in Japan.
Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister from 2001 to 2006, told reporters Wednesday he has set up a special fund to collect private donations for the former service members, with the goal of collecting $1 million (100 million yen) by the end of next March, mainly to help with medical bills.
“I felt I had to do something to help those who worked so hard for Japan,” he said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “Maybe this isn’t enough, but it will express our gratitude, that Japan is thankful.”
Koizumi, 74, one of Japan’s most popular prime ministers in recent decades, was in San Diego in May to meet with 10 of the former service members, who have joined a class-action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, the utility that operates the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.
The lawsuit, filed in 2012, is ongoing, and a California judge has ruled it will proceed. More Navy personnel and Marines are joining the suit, now numbering about 400, according to Koizumi. Some 70,000 Americans took part in Operation Tomodachi, or Friend, flying in aid from an aircraft carrier and other warships off the coast of northeastern Japan.