(39a) Recent Accidents and Safety Activities in JAPAN

Economic development and improvement in people’s lifestyle result in drastic change of human perspective, social situation and also drastic change of industrial structure. The change of social situation caused lower moral, lower sensitivity to hazards by limited experience of hazards during the childhood under the protected safety environment. Change of industrial structure increased potential hazards on materials and processes etc. Differentiation, specialization and computerization of jobs caused difficulties in understanding the overall picture and the individual contents of processes for engineers and workers. Acceleration of retirement of skilled operation and maintenance experts who have capable of understanding the detailed contents of individual processes caused difficulties in adequate corresponce to abnormal situation in chemical plants.

                   In past few years, there have been many catastrophic explosions and fires in chemical industries in Japan. By investigating theses accidents, specific lessons have been learned. These lessons learned should be implemented in terms of safety education of the employees and/or safety measures of the equipment and facilities resulting in a rapid decrease of corresponding accident frequencies. In this paper, recent accidents in process industries and safety activities in Japan are presented. And intelligent operation support system is also shown as an example of the way to prevent accidents in chemical industries.