The Account of the Fukushima Daiichi
Accident by the Plant Manager: A Source
to Study Engineering Thinking
in Extreme Situations
Aissame Afrouss
Abstract The concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations” has been
defined to make up for an epistemological lack in the field of Safety Studies. After
the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, official reports did not take an interest
in analysing the conditions in which the recovery efforts had to be carried out. The
description of the accident and its representation in the accident investigation
reports convey these shortcomings. The Fukushima Daiichi plant manager Masao
Yoshida testimony may allow us address them partly. Actually, the transcription of
his hearings contains essential details and information to understand the sequence
of events which took place after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. This
article intends to show the importance of studying this narrative, in order to
highlight the relations between the Fukushima accident management and the concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations”.
Keywords Engineering thinking Á Extreme situation Á Yoshida testimony Á
Narrative analysis Á Mental representation
1 Introduction
The Fukushima Daiichi accident is regarded as one of History’s most important
nuclear accidents, along with those at Chernobyl and Three Miles Island. Yet, the
institutional accident investigation reports do not allow us to comprehend fully the
complexity of the accident management by the operators. To address this problem,
the concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations” has been defined as
“engineering activities that are significantly impeded due to the lack of resources in
the face of a societal emergency” [1].
A. Afrouss (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC), MINES ParisTech/PSL-Research University,
Sophia Antipolis, France
e-mail: aissame.afrouss@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_19
233
Accident by the Plant Manager: A Source
to Study Engineering Thinking
in Extreme Situations
Aissame Afrouss
Abstract The concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations” has been
defined to make up for an epistemological lack in the field of Safety Studies. After
the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, official reports did not take an interest
in analysing the conditions in which the recovery efforts had to be carried out. The
description of the accident and its representation in the accident investigation
reports convey these shortcomings. The Fukushima Daiichi plant manager Masao
Yoshida testimony may allow us address them partly. Actually, the transcription of
his hearings contains essential details and information to understand the sequence
of events which took place after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. This
article intends to show the importance of studying this narrative, in order to
highlight the relations between the Fukushima accident management and the concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations”.
Keywords Engineering thinking Á Extreme situation Á Yoshida testimony Á
Narrative analysis Á Mental representation
1 Introduction
The Fukushima Daiichi accident is regarded as one of History’s most important
nuclear accidents, along with those at Chernobyl and Three Miles Island. Yet, the
institutional accident investigation reports do not allow us to comprehend fully the
complexity of the accident management by the operators. To address this problem,
the concept of “engineering thinking in extreme situations” has been defined as
“engineering activities that are significantly impeded due to the lack of resources in
the face of a societal emergency” [1].
A. Afrouss (&)
Centre for Research on Risks and Crises (CRC), MINES ParisTech/PSL-Research University,
Sophia Antipolis, France
e-mail: aissame.afrouss@mines-paristech.fr
© The Author(s) 2017
J. Ahn et al. (eds.), Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-58768-4_19
233