Mayor Jin Sato of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, should be charged with professional negligence for the March 2011 tsunami deaths of town officials whom he failed to send to higher ground, their relatives said in a criminal complaint that police have finally accepted.
The tsunami from the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake claimed the lives of 41 officials who were working in Minamisanriku's three-floor disaster-prevention headquarters. Sato and nine others managed to survive by clinging to antennas on the roof of the inundated building. He was later profiled internationally as a hero.
The relatives have been pursuing a negligence complaint against Sato since March, and the police accepted it Monday, sources said. The relatives said their loved ones, many of whom spent their last 45 minutes on the second floor issuing evacuation alerts over the community public address system, felt pressured to stay because Sato was there.