TOKYO, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has paid shiitake mushroom producers in the southwestern prefecture of Oita about 402 million yen (about 2.7 million U.S. dollars) in compensation for reputational damage caused by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

The Oita Prefecture Shiitake Agricultural Cooperatives announced earlier this week that it had reached the settlement dated Jan. 24 with TEPCO, the plant's operator, in an alternative dispute resolution proceeding involving 966 shiitake mushroom producers in the coastal prefecture.

Shiitake mushroom producers had sought 2.6 billion yen in damages in July 2019, claiming that the price of locally produced dried shiitake mushrooms, which had exceeded 4,000 yen per kilogram before the accident, had fallen to 2,427 yen in 2013 due to reputational damage resulting from the 2011 nuclear disaster.

Yoshihide Abe, former head of the cooperative who was involved in the petition, said during a press conference, "Reputational damage is a huge issue for those involved in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries. We'd like consumers to understand the fact that the producers have gone through a lot of hardship."

Hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. (1 Japanese yen equals 0.0068 U.S. dollar) Enditem

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