U.S. Navy to pay Ehime Maru damages

Associated Press

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy has agreed to pay damages to a local government over the sinking of a Japanese fishing boat by a U.S. submarine last year in Hawai'i waters, an official said today.

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

Officials from the Ehime prefecture (state) 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 prefectural spokesman Hirofumi Nomura.

Nomura said the U.S. Navy agreed to pay the Ehime government a total of $10 million in compensation, including the cost of building a new fisheries training vessel.

Separately, compensation talks are still going on between the U.S. Navy and families of the victims.