[mmercier]

It is unfair to hold liable an entity whose product failed after an earthquake, a tsunami, and a systemic power failure. The utilities whose grid failed have vastly more responsibility for failure to require on site generation capability for those facilities than GE.

We call them diesel generators. I worked in a facility that had one system with three units that was bigger than a a box car. It had capacity to run the buildings necessary operations for a week without external power.

[tobyhill]

I'm not holding all GE responsible for their 40 year old design flaw, I'm just pointing out what the article reads.

[thackney]

The diesel generators ran for about an hour at the Japanese nuclear plants before water damage from the tsunami finally shut them down.

[MortMan]

It is unfair to hold liable an entity whose product failed after an earthquake, a tsunami, and a systemic power failure.

That's not entirely true. Many such events are included in the design specification for the plant. If the catastrophes are within the specification design limits, expect the plant to withstand the catastrophe.

In this instance, the earthquake was an order of magnitude larger than specified. The tsunami may have been over-spec as well.