Oral proceedings started Friday at the Sendai High Court in an appeal filed by a school against damages it was ordered to pay in connection with the March 11, 2011, tsunami deaths of four pupils aboard one of its buses, and both sides also agreed to pursue settlement negotiations.
The privately run Hiyori kindergarten in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was ordered last Sept. 17 by the Sendai District Court to pay ¥177 million in redress for negligence for sending the bus through a low-lying area not long after the 9-magnitude Great East Japan Earthquake hit. Tsunami killed five pupils and a female employee of the school aboard the bus.
The bus had taken seven pupils to safe locations and, unable to find the families of the other five aboard, had been told to return to the school due to tsunami fears. The waves hit while it was stuck in traffic.