Court orders $10,500 to A-bomb sufferers

HIROSHIMA, Japan, March 19 (UPI) -- A court ordered Japan to pay a total of $10,500 in damages to three plaintiffs who demanded the government recognize them as atomic bomb disease sufferers.

The Hiroshima District Court ordered the payment to the three, who were among five sufferers the court recognized, the Mainichi Shinbun reported.

A total of 23 people from the Hiroshima, Shimane and Yamaguchi prefectures participated in the class-action lawsuit, demanding $32,000 each in compensation.

Their lawsuit sought to nullify Tokyo's refusal to recognize them as victims of radiation disease caused by the Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. atomic bombing in Hiroshima.

Four of the plaintiffs died since the lawsuit was started, the newspaper said.

The ruling marks the first time a court has ordered Tokyo to compensate victims in a class-action lawsuit over recognition of atomic bomb-related illness, the newspaper said.

"The Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, who has a responsibility to exercise due care, aimlessly dismissed the (sufferers') requests, causing psychological distress," Presiding Judge Tomoyuki Nonogami said in awarding the three plaintiffs between $1,200 and $5,800 each.

The Hiroshima bombing killed some 70,000 people almost immediately and as many as 140,000 by the end of 1945, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation says.

An estimated 60,000 more died by 1950 due to cancer and other long-term effects, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum says.

From 1950 to 1990, roughly 9 percent of the cancer and leukemia deaths among bomb survivors were due to radiation from the bombs, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation says.