STAR-BULLETIN / FEBRUARY 2002 The four surviving students from the Ehime Maru sinking, along with their principal, Ietaka Horita, attended a service last month at Kakaako Waterfront Park. The U.S. Navy has agreed to pay $10 million to Ehime prefecture over the February 2001 sinking.

Ehime prefecture to get
$10 million from Navy

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Staff and news reports

TOKYO >> The U.S. Navy has agreed to pay $10 million to Ehime prefecture over the sinking of the Japanese fishing boat Ehime Maru off Diamond Head last year, an official said today.

Nine men and boys were killed when the nuclear submarine USS Greeneville surfaced beneath the trawler on Feb. 9, 2001.

The submarine was demonstrating an emergency surfacing maneuver for 16 civilian guests when it rammed into the Ehime Maru. Twenty-six people aboard the vessel survived. Greeneville Cmdr. Scott Waddle was stripped of his command and reprimanded by the Navy. Eight months after the collision, he was allowed to retire with a full pension.

The Navy recovered eight of the nine bodies last fall in a $60 million operation. However, the body of 17-year-old Takeshi Mizuguchi was never found.

Officials from the Ehime government, the ship's owner and the U.S. Navy have held negotiations seven times since May, and both sides recently reached a settlement, said prefecture spokesman Hirofumi Nomura.

The compensation includes the cost of building a new fisheries training vessel.

Separately, compensation talks are continuing between the U.S. Navy and families of the victims.

Last month, the victims' families and students of Uwajima Fisheries High School attended a service at Kakaako Waterfront Park where a monument paid for by the Uwajima government was built. Japanese and U.S. government officials also attended the service marking the first anniversary of the collision.

The Ehime prefecture paid $65,000 for the memorial, which includes an anchor recovered from the trawler.

Personal items of the victims also were recovered and returned to their family members.