Officials of the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant apologized Thursday to the family of a 102-year-old man who killed himself in the face of an evacuation order amid the 2011 nuclear crisis.

The apology was issued after a court recognized the causal relationship between the suicide and the nuclear disaster and ordered Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. to pay damages to the family.

"We are tormented by the fact that your father, who was doing really well beyond his age of over 100, was forced to make the painful decision," Michitaka Kondo, a senior official of Tepco's Fukushima main office said at the family's residence.

Fumio Okubo was found to have hanged himself at his home in the village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, on April 12, 2011, about a month after the quake and tsunami disaster triggered the nuclear accident and a day after he learned the government was going to issue the evacuation order to the village.

Mieko Okubo, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and the 65-year-old wife of Okubo's second-eldest son, said the family's "wish was fulfilled" by the apology. She added the family would now like to live peacefully.

On Feb. 20 this year, the Fukushima District Court ordered the utility known as Tepco to pay 15.2 million yen ($142,000) in compensation to the family of Okubo. According to the court ruling, Okubo had never lived outside his hometown.

The ruling was finalized as both the plaintiffs and the defendant did not appeal.