Masao Yoshida (nuclear engineer)
Masao Yoshida (Japanese吉田 昌 郎, Masao Yoshida, born February 17, 1955 in the Osaka Prefecture, † July 9, 2013 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese nuclear engineer and the responsible manager of the nuclear power plants during the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Life
Yoshida's parents ran a small advertising company. Yoshida studied engineering and then as Master Course Nuclear Engineering at the Technical University of Tokyo and then went in 1979 to Tepco. There in 2007 he was promoted to infrastructure security officer of two nuclear power plants Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini. In this role, he claims once, the probability that a tsunami could destroy the nuclear power plant is " zero ". In June 2010 he was appointed superintendent of the two nuclear power plants.
On 11 March 2011 came after the Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami, a nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Yoshida said to have been by his actions largely responsible for that, according to the four hydrogen explosions and the three incipient core meltdown in reactors 1, 2 and 3 of Fukushima Daiichi, the scale of the disaster has been contained.
On March 12, 2011 at 19:55 clock, had around 28 hours after the tsunami damaged the nuclear power plants, announced the Tepco management permission for the introduction of seawater into reactor 1 Permission for introducing sea water - which the reactors are damaged - Prime Minister Naoto Kan had previously given. Only 21 minutes later, but instructed the Tepco management Yoshida, interrupting the discharge of seawater and thus cooling of the reactor. About the instructions of the management team, Yoshida flouted and continued pumping of sea water for cooling the damaged reactors. 20:05 clock that night, was again the statement of the Japanese Government to the opening of sea water.
While the pressure relief, explosions and fires the radiation exposure rose sharply on the site. From 15 March were only about " 50 " - in the media as the " Fukushima 50 " designated - Staff of Tepco, the manufacturer Toshiba as well as 130 additional workers and helpers from other companies, fire a special unit of Tokyo and the armed forces - together more than 400 people - in use. Yoshida led the rescue work on site.
On June 7, 2011 Yoshida received a warning, the order of Tepco 's management to be not complied with and have not reported this earlier.
Five months after the start of the nuclear disaster had to testify in front of a Yoshida investigation team of the government. Although it was announced that he could not be questioned by prosecutor because of his failing health, his testimony was examined because the filing of a criminal case against him was considered.
In November 2011, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. After the diagnosis, he resigned from his post. He underwent several operations, including an emergency surgery after an intracranial hemorrhage in July 2012.
In the same month, in August 2012, drew Yoshida, contrary to the traditional Japanese corporate culture of a video with the consultant for human resources development Hideaki Yabuhara in support of psychological counseling, which made this once a month for the 250 Tepco employees. Psychological counseling is rare in Japan and get the admitting psychological counseling even rarer. A message from Yoshida in the video was that Tepco should grant the finance of psychiatric care of its employees. In this video, the otherwise always very dominated engineer gave his experiences during the days after the disaster in March, and confessed his feelings and fears. About conflicts with the Tepco headquarters, he remained silent, instead he appealed, the most important thing is that nuclear power plants ruin further stabilize is.
Masao Yoshida died on July 9, 2013 at the age of 58 years on the cancer that is probably not caused as a result of the temporal evolution of the disease by the nuclear disaster. He left behind a wife and three sons.