TOKYO — Japanese prosecutors indicted three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, on Monday, charging them with criminal negligence for their role in reactor meltdowns after an earthquake and tsunami five years ago.

The indictments were the first stemming from the 2011 nuclear disaster, which spread radiation across a wide area in northeastern Japan and led to evacuations that left more than 100,000 homeless.

The sudden and often chaotic evacuations caused the deaths of 44 people, prosecutors said in a statement. They did not identify the victims, but most, if not all, are believed to have been older Fukushima residents who were in hospitals and nursing homes, or bedridden at home, when the disaster occurred.