Some Investigations of Fukushima Dai-ichi Accidents from the Viewpoints of Human Factors

Many problems were posed in the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPS accident, including recognizing the situation in the plant, information sharing in/out of the power station, decision making, emergency response, education and training on daily basis, instrumentation/control facilities and work environment of the plant, etc. A voluntaly group in the division of Human-Machine System of Atomic Society of Japan reviewed the problems suggested in various reports from the viewpoint of human factors. This paper reports the outline of some results of the review based upon some accident reports published after the accident and the information published by the defunct Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. The severe situations due to the loss of all power resulted in unsuccessful operation. However, the staffs on the site seem to have taken flexible approaches based on their knowledge and experience. As for the fields of communication and information sharing, there found some problems among two groups, operation groups, or order-givers and takers. On the other hand, in the analysis of emergency response capability to the accident by several techniques, many good cases were found in individual and organizational levels, but there were bad crisis responses found in managerial or national levels.