When we hear the words “Fukushima disaster,” most of us think of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant wracked by three core meltdowns and three reactor building explosions following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Without electricity to run the plant’s cooling systems, managers and workers couldn’t avert catastrophe: People around the world watched grainy footage of the explosions, gray plumes of smoke and steam blotting the skyline. Since the tsunami, Daiichi has been consumed by the challenge of containing and reducing the radioactive water and debris left behind.

Less well known is the crisis at Fukushima Daini, a sister plant about 10 kilometers to the south, which also suffered severe damage but escaped Daiichi’s fate. To shed light on how leadership shaped the outcome, we’ve reconstructed that story here—from several firsthand interviews; detailed reports by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility that owns both plants; the Nuclear Energy Institute; and a number of public sources. In so volatile an environment, none of the usual rules for decision making and organizational behavior applied. But the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and the rest of Daini’s 400 employees charted their way through the chaos, and the plant survived without a meltdown or an explosion.

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Without question, Masuda and his team were in a much better position than the workers at Daiichi, where greater physical damage had terrible consequences. Whereas Daini had at least a little electricity on its side, Daiichi lost all its off-site power sources and effectively all its emergency diesel generators. When the control rooms went dark, workers couldn’t even monitor their deteriorating circumstances. The damage and the loss of power were the main contributors to the explosions. With containment breached, workers were potentially exposed to high levels of radiation. The Daiichi workforce at one point shrank to 69 people when employees sought safety, as recently released interviews with the site superintendent, Masao Yoshida, reportedly confirm. At Daini, Masuda had 400.

Still, unexpected challenges came at Masuda and his team thick and fast. In the heat of the crisis, problem by problem, they acted their way toward sense, purpose, and resolution. And three years later, Masuda continues to seek that resolution, now at Daini’s sister plant: In April 2014 he was appointed Daiichi’s chief decommissioning officer.


http://hbr.org/2014/07/how-the-other-fukushima-plant-survived/ar/1