Navy to sign agreement with Ehime prefecture

Associated Press

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy will sign a compensation agreement with a local government next week to cover damages over last year's sinking of a Japanese fisheries training vessel by a U.S. submarine, officials said today.

Nine of 35 high school students, teachers and crew aboard the Ehime Maru died when the nuclear-powered USS Greeneville surfaced beneath the fishing trawler on Feb. 9, 2001, off O'ahu.

Under the agreement, the U.S. Navy will pay about $11 million, including the expense to build a new fisheries training vessel and cover the cost of counseling the survivors, a spokesman for the Ehime Prefectural (state) government said.

The exact amount and the breakdown will be disclosed on the day of the signing. The date of the signing, to be held in Tokyo, has not been announced.

The package, however, does not cover payment for the nine victims, whose compensation talks are being conducted separately with the U.S. Navy.

Following a Navy court of inquiry last year, the submarine captain at the time, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, was found guilty at an admiral's mast of dereliction of duty and negligent hazarding of a vessel.

Waddle retired later last year.