TOKYO — A district court in Fukushima, the site of the nuclear meltdowns in 2011 that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, ruled on Tuesday that the Japanese government and the electric utility that operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant must pay damages totaling roughly $4.4 million to about 2,900 people.

The ruling was the largest in about 30 similar lawsuits filed by about 12,000 former and current Fukushima residents, and it was awarded even though the majority of the plaintiffs did not flee the area in the aftermath of the disaster. It was the third case in which a court found the Tokyo Electric Power Company — and the second to find the government — negligent in not preventing the meltdowns set off by a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

In the latest case, according to Japanese news reports, the court ruled that the government should have been able to anticipate a large tsunami in the region and should have forced Tokyo Electric — known as Tepco — to take preventive measures to protect its plant from catastrophic damage.

The plaintiffs in the case sought a total of 16 billion yen in compensation to help pay for the cost of restoring their living environment. They also asked the court to force Tepco to lower the rate of radiation in the area to an average of about 0.04 microsieverts an hour.