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A court in Japan on Thursday acquitted three former executives at the company that runs the Fukushima nuclear power facility crippled by a tsunami-spawned meltdown in 2011 of criminal responsibility for the disaster.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on the afternoon of March 11 that year triggered an enormous tsunami that overwhelmed Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Waves as high as 14 metres (46 feet) high caused meltdowns and hydrogen explosions that spewed radiation into the atmosphere and forced mass evacuations, resulting in the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

The disaster shocked Japan, which shut down the nuclear plants that had for decades been the source of cheap energy for the world's third-largest economy.

Lawyers prosecuting the case had sought five-year prison sentences for TEPCO`s former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, as well as former vice-presidents Sakae Muto and Ichiro Takekuro on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.