4 Indicted over Fatal 2022 Plant Fire in Central Japan
Niigata, Oct. 8 (Jiji Press)--Public prosecutors have indicted without arrest four people linked to rice cracker maker Sanko Seika Co. in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, over a plant fire in 2022 that killed six workers of the company. Indicted by the Niigata District Public Prosecutors Office on Wednesday were former Sanko Seika CEO Motoyasu Sato, 56, former production headquarters chie...
Public prosecutors in Niigata, Japan, have indicted four individuals connected to rice cracker maker Sanko Seika Co. for a fatal plant fire that occurred in 2022, killing six workers. The indictment was handed down by the Niigata District Public Prosecutors Office on Wednesday, with the four individuals facing charges of professional negligence resulting in death.
The defendants include former Sanko Seika CEO Motoyasu Sato, former production headquarters chief Hirohisa Sato, former production management division head Katsuyuki Tamagawa, and Tomio Habe, the former manager of the firm's Arakawa plant in Murakami city, where the deadly fire took place.
According to prosecutors, the four former Sanko Seika officials were aware of the potential fire hazard posed by oil-containing scraps of senbei rice crackers that had accumulated at the bottom of a dryer installed on an oven at the Arakawa plant following previous fires. Despite this knowledge, they failed to take necessary measures such as altering the dryer's layout, removing the rice cracker scraps, or informing workers about an evacuation route.
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