TEPCO's ex-chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata apologized to victims of the Fukushima disaster but did not take responsibility.
Professional negligence is at issue in the hearing at the Tokyo District Court, resulting in death and injury. Specifically at issue in the trial is the failed sea-wall and whether TEPCO's leadership should have been able to predict the tsunami.
I've read many times there is an engraved stone marker high in the hills above the plant that warns readers not to build below that marker because of tsunami risks.
Ancient wisdom may have seemed anachronistic to the modernist builders of nuclear power plants in the 1960s and 1970s but we see that human faith in technology can be very misplaced with the Fukushima disaster.
One interesting aspect of the news report published in the Asahi Shimbun is the apology for deaths caused by the disaster. If you read western media accounts, you would not think a single person died from the Fukushima disaster, even the plant manager's death by throat cancer is allegedly "unrelated" to the disaster:
Mikiharu Sugiura and Chikako Kawahara (October 30, 2018). Ex-TEPCO head apologizes to victims of 2011 nuclear disaster THE ASAHI SHIMBUN. Available, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201810300056.html
A former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, apologized to victims of the 2011 nuclear disaster but would not acknowledge responsibility.
"I deeply apologize to those who died, their bereaved families, injured people, local people and society at large," Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78, said Oct. 29 during the 33rd hearing of a trial at the Tokyo District Court of three former TEPCO executives accused of professional negligence resulting in death and injury as a result of the disaster.