Victims of wildfires linked to PG&E Corp. in California obtained $141.3 million of payments from the utility’s bankruptcy, but the concern is that the process of payout is very slow.
The wildfires drove PG&E into bankruptcy in 2019. The Fire Victim Trust wrote a letter to the 2018 Camp Fire and other wildfire victims claiming that 7,547 victims have been paid.
The fund's trustee declared that the payments are capped at $25,000 and two-thirds of the disbursed money has been done as preliminary payments towards the victims who are struggling because of fires and the current COVID-19 crisis.
The first round of “pro-rata payments” has been paid to fewer than 200 victims, as per the amount of their claims. The total amount of the payments is almost $46 million and represents 30% of each victims’ claims.
The trustee even said that validating the claims will take months as the trust is supposed to pay $13.5 billion as compensation to the victims for the damages which are not covered by their insurance.
The trust started rolling out the payments last November, but victims have criticised it for the delay in issuing cash. Trustee acknowledged the critics in his letter. PG&E is not liable to pay the victims of the fires, as it has already filed for Chapter 11 in early 2019.
