The Fukushima Daiichi power plant disaster has become a textbook example of what not to do in an emergency.

After a gigantic earthquake and a devastating tsunami, Japan now has a nuclear crisis which is becoming a case study in bad crisis management. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster may overshadow the 1984 Union Carbide Bhopal chemical leak, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill or last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a textbook example of what not to do.

This is not just Japan’s problem. A cloud now hangs over the future of nuclear power throughout the “Pacific Ring of Fire” earthquake zone as locals stage traditional and online protests against nuclear energy.

A few organizations will need to adopt new ways of operating after this situation is brought under control. The regulatory authority responsible for nuclear power plants in Japan needs to reassess how to build plants in an earthquake zone. (It appears that the design and location of the Fukushima Daiichi plant was just plain wrong).

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the plant, and the Japanese government need to change the way they release critical information in a crisis. The flow of information has been slow and vague. In the West we’d describe it as stonewalling.

Japanese authorities also need to assess how they make decisions in a crisis. It appears that much of the decision-making, at least at first, placed a higher value on profit than it did on human life. For example, the Wall Street Journal claims that TEPCO delayed using sea water to cool the reactors because it was concerned about the damage salt water would do to its assets.

This points to a bigger problem in crisis management, worldwide and not just in Japan: lack of training in ethical decision-making in emergencies.

- Alistair Nicholas

SOURCE AND FULL ARTICLE

People have to come before profits, even in a crisis (Mercator.net)