What the Fukushima Is a Risk Assessment?

Or, how the Fukushima disaster could have been prevented

On Friday afternoon of March 11, 2011, an earthquake of 9.0 magnitude was detected about 45 miles off the coast of Japan. One of the most powerful ever recorded, it moved the 8,000 square-mile island of Honshu 8 feet to the east. It also set off a 130-ft tidal wave (the same height, ironically, as the world’s tallest water slide in Brazil).

Travelling at 70 miles an hour, the wave surged four miles inland, destroying or washing away everything in its path. To this day, substantial debris, like a Harley Davidson motorcycle, continues to wash up on the western shores of Canada and the United States.

The World Bank called it one of the most expensive natural disasters of all time. Certainly it was costly to the estimated 16,000 people who lost their lives.

Already some of these facts are slipping from our collective memory, but most people will continue to associate this earthquake with the subsequent disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

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Comments

Choice of words

Sophmoric play on words is disappointing for a "professional" publication.

It is really a matter of safety culture.

Fukushima is really another example of the degradation of an organization's safety culture rather than the lack of risk assessment. The U.S. Nuclear Industry is considering additional defense strategies as a result of Fukushima; going beyond design basis accidents. It is one thing to continually assess risk. It is the culture of the organization that provides the motivation to do something constructive with the results of that assessment.

That being said, I agree with Mr Naysmith's assertion that many organizations do not benefit from the insights that a robust risk assessment will provide. Here in the states we react rather than proact. Not across the board, but far too often.

Getting management support for a risk assessment

Great article Paul. Is your mother going to wash your mouth out with soap? Of all your points, it was the last paragraph that carries the big question: If you don't take any risk assessment actions, and something does go wrong, how will you explain your lack of action? I was working with a German airline (guess?) some years ago, and the project head looked at me and said, "I want this analysis included in the project because I do not want to find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to explain to my executives why I did not take four more hours to investigate this issue." Jeff

risk calculus

The use of risk matrics, or thinking that risk can be subject to the calculation of 'probability of occurance' X 'severity of outcome' is dangerous.

Risk matrices, particularly when created by uncalibrated users, can mislead, and one simply cannot multiply a probabilty distribution function by an ordinal and get anything meaningful.

I refer to:

http://eight2late.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/six-common-pitfalls-in-project-risk-analysis/

http://eight2late.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/cox%e2%80%99s-risk-matrix-theorem-and-its-implications-for-project-risk-management/

http://eight2late.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/on-the-limitations-of-scoring-methods-for-risk-analysis/

As concise comment on the problems. For a more detailed analysis, refer to Hubbards The Failure of Risk Management.