An international maritime compensation fund will award up to 1.24 billion yen in damages to the tourism industries in four prefectures along the Sea of Japan for a 1997 oil spill from a Russian tanker, according to people involved in the case.
The London-based International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund has almost finished assessing a total of 3.5 billion yen in compensation demands filed by Ishikawa, Fukui, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures and put the total damages at 1.24 billion yen.
It has already offered 860 million yen, some 70 percent of the approved amount, to tourism industries in the four prefectures in advance.
Hiroki Okabe, a lawyer representing the businesses, said it is "unusual" that tourism industries are awarded such a large amount of redress.
He said the fund acknowledged drops in seafood sales and tourism following the spill. The fund has so far paid out 498 million yen to Fukui, 240 million yen to Ishikawa, 53 million yen to Kyoto and 73 million yen to Hyogo.
In the January 1997 incident, up to 6,200 kiloliters of fuel oil washed up on the coasts of 10 prefectures -- the four prefectures plus Akita, Yamagata, Niigata, Toyama, Tottori and Shimane -- after the 13,157-ton Nakhodka, carrying 20,000 kiloliters of fuel oil, broke up in the Sea of Japan off Shimane Prefecture.
The 10 prefectures as well as fishery and tourism industries demanded about 35 billion yen from the fund.