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 chief Hirohisa Sato, 62, former production management division head Katsuyuki Tamagawa, 59, and Tomio Habe, 62, former manager of the firm's Arakawa plant in the city of Murakami in the prefecture, the site of the deadly fire.

They face allegations of professional negligence resulting in death. The prosecutors office stopped short of disclosing whether the four have admitted the charges.

The indictment came as the office concluded that the four failed to take necessary measures although similar fires had occurred at the plant and that their negligence led to the fatal blaze.

According to the indictment, the four former Sanko Seika officials, following the past fires, were aware of the possibility that oil-containing scraps of "senbei" rice crackers that accumulated at the bottom of a dryer installed on an oven at the Arakawa plant may catch fire, but failed to take measures such as changing the layout of the dryer, removing the rice cracker scraps and informing workers of an evacuation route.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]