Fukushima Daiichi NPS Prompt Report 2015

Chairman meets with contractors to press "safety first" policy and expresses sympathy to workers' families

TEPCO ANNOUNCES SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS AFTER
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF TWO WORKERS AT FUKUSHIMA PLANTS

Chairman meets with contractors to press "safety first" policy and expresses sympathy to workers' families

FUKUSHIMA, Feb. 3, 2015 -After conducting a thorough investigation into the accidental death of two workers on Jan. 19 and 20 at its Fukushima facilities, the Tokyo Electric Power Company yesterday announced measures to improve safety at all three of its nuclear power stations.

The measures include increased training on accident prevention, increased emphasis on the priority of safety over schedules, and a commitment to have senior executives patrol the facilities to identify risks and personally convey the "safety first" message.

Both of the workers were employees of contractors operating at the TEPCO sites. During a work stoppage called by the company to reassess safety practices, Chairman Fumio Sudo met with representatives of contractors operating at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

"While industrial accidents may be difficult to entirely eradicate, the loss of life is completely unacceptable," Chairman Sudo said after the meetings. "We convey our sincere sympathy to the families of the workers who lost their lives, and we are committed to doing everything we can to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future."

Takafumi Anegawa, the Director and the Managing Executive Officer who oversees the nuclear division at TEPCO, said he will personally direct the implementation of further safety improvements. "For the employees at the site, there appears to be strong pressure to meet the deadline for their work, but what we have to continuously do is to put safety first, " Anegawa said.

He said TEPCO will build a system to share past accident details to site members and workers and will set common safety rules to be adhered to by both TEPCO and the cooperating companies working at the sites. He also said that any fatal accident would be reported promptly to appointed members at the site, to be reviewed and the findings communicated on a company-wide level.

Finally, Anegawa said TEPCO will step up the education of their staff on accident prevention, and that he and top-level executives responsible for the power stations will personally regularly patrol the sites to further identify risks and impress the "safety first" message.

Work Resumed

After the pause in work at all three installations to conduct safety reviews and inspections, operations resumed on January 26 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPS, which TEPCO is preparing to restart, and on January 28 at Fukushima Daini, which the company is maintaining in "cold shutdown" status. Work at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPS, where approximately 7,000 people work every day, remained suspended but has started today. TEPCO said that due to the safety inspection, the work schedule for some decommissioning work at the plant may need to be adjusted by two weeks to a month, even after operations resume. The details of the specific work to be affected will be determined in due course, according to the schedules and stages of each process.

The accidents, one at each of the two Fukushima plants, were unrelated to each other. In one, a worker fell into an empty water tank during inspection, and in the other, a worker was killed by falling heavy equipment. Additional detail on the accidents is posted at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150119_01-e.pdf and http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150120_01-e.pdf

Additional detail on the new safety measures may be seen at
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2015/images/handouts_150202_01-e.pdf

About TEPCO

Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. (TEPCO) is Japan's largest power company, supplying energy to the greater Kanto area, including Japan's two most populous cities, Tokyo and Yokohama. Its 35,000 employees are committed to providing safe, reliable power to its 29.0 million customers, diversifying energy resources to ensure sustainability, and contributing to economic growth while fully meeting its responsibilities after the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
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