The mayor of Namie, a town near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, criticized the former president of Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday for stepping down from his post too early.
"Don't you think that stepping down after containing the accident would have been the right thing to do?" Tamotsu Baba asked Masataka Shimizu during a meeting in Namie's temporary office in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture.
Shimizu replied: "I chose to resign as a way of taking managerial responsibility. I will be in a different position, but I will support the new management and make the utmost efforts to help contain the crisis and the compensation efforts."