A worker leaves a room with shelves storing helmets at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Photo: AP

Tokyo: Three former utility company executives have been formally charged over their alleged negligence in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, becoming the first ones from the firm to go to criminal court.

National broadcaster NHK reports a group of court-appointed lawyers indicted Tsunehisa Katsumata, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company at the time of the crisis, along with two other TEPCO executives on Monday.

The three men, charged with professional negligence, were not arrested.

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The indictment follows a decision by an 11-member judicial committee in July to send the three men to criminal court after prosecutors had dropped the case.

Three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami suffered meltdowns, triggering massive radiation leaks that forced tens of thousands of people to leave.

AP