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Disaster Prevention Activities

With the company-wide organization and structure, we further upgrade our activities aiming to prepare for natural disasters and eliminate accidents.

The Kobe Steel Group continues to implement group-wide protective measures for its facilities and prepare for natural disasters through such means as holding group-wide disaster prevention meetings, establishing disaster response systems, and holding training exercises. These measures are actively pursued to prevent accidents from occurring and to minimize damage if a disaster does strike.

We will continue to raise every employee's awareness of the importance of disaster prevention while further pursuing disaster prevention activities on a group-wide level.

Fiscal 2009 Company-Wide Disaster Prevention Management Policy

Respect for human life
Continuity of corporate activities
Cooperation with local communities

The Kobe Steel Group always puts respect for human life first and will continue to work with local communities to eliminate accidents and reinforce preparedness in the event of a natural disaster so as to ensure the continuation of its business activities and earn the public's trust.

Initiatives in Fiscal 2009

Under the supervision of the President and the Director responsible for company-wide disaster prevention, we continue to implement disaster prevention management activities throughout the Kobe Steel Group based on the organizational structure outlined below.

During fiscal 2009, we focused on the following three priorities and implemented a range of disaster prevention management activities in accordance with our Company-Wide Disaster Prevention Management Policy.

Main priorities

(1) Complying with laws	Continuing to maintain and reinforce our group-wide management structure and ensuring compliance with all applicable laws and regulations
(2) Handling accidents at facilities	Striving to eliminate accidents at our facilities on a group-wide basis
(3) Being prepared for natural disasters	Creating a corporate group that is highly resilient to natural disasters

Company-Wide Disaster Prevention Management Structure

Disaster Management in Times of Emergency

In the event of a large-scale earthquake or other natural disaster or accident, a Disaster Management Headquarters will be set up to conduct relief work and restoration activities.

In this event, we will also use emergency contact information on the Kobe Steel Group website to share emergency information, news regarding employees' safety and other important details, directly from affected companies.

Organization Chart for Disaster Management Headquarters

* The General Manager of the Disaster Management Headquarters is the President of Kobe Steel. The President appoints the Deputy General Manager of the Disaster Management Headquarters.

VOICE

Director's Message
Introducing an earthquake early warning system and promoting efforts to reinforce disaster prevention capabilities on a company-wide basis

Koji Fujii, Officer
Director responsible for company-wide disaster prevention

Here at the Kobe Steel Group, we have carried out disaster prevention management activities with the aim of maintaining compliance with disaster-related laws, reinforcing our management structure so as to eliminate accidents at our facilities and ensuring that we are prepared for any natural disaster.

During fiscal 2009, a team from head office went out to visit each of our sites in order to check levels of compliance and carry out other company-wide activities such as introducing disaster prevention inspections in an effort to minimize related risks, working on the introduction of an earthquake early warning system and drawing on examples of disasters in the past in an effort to reduce the risk of disasters occurring in the first place.

Disaster prevention and reduction is a never-ending process. We will continue to meticulously carry out individual activities in the future in an effort to eliminate accidents at all of our facilities and establish a corporate group that is highly resilient to natural disasters.

Disaster Prevention Inspections

In addition to existing site-specific disaster prevention activities, we have also introduced disaster prevention inspections at individual sites, carried out by the Environmental Control and Disaster Prevention Department from Head Office, with the aim of verifying details such as levels of compliance with disaster-related legislation. As a result of this year's inspections, we found no violations of any applicable laws.

We will continue to reinforce our disaster prevention management structure through disaster prevention inspections in the future, focusing on areas such as legal compliance and risk avoidance at individual sites.

The Environmental Control and Disaster Prevention Department carrying out a disaster prevention inspection (Ibaraki Plant)

Earthquake Early Warning System

At Kobe Steel, we are working to introduce an earthquake early warning system in order to keep the human and physical impact in the event of a large-scale earthquake to a minimum at our plants and works, head office, branch offices and sales offices. In response to alerts issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency, we calculate the expected intensity and time of arrival at each of our sites via an internal server at the Kakogawa Works and issue simultaneous earthquake early warnings to all locations that are expected to experience an earthquake above a certain scale. Initiatives such as these enable us to provide advance warning.

We will continue to enhance our ability to prevent disasters in the future via initiatives such as emergency response drills based on earthquake early warnings.

Outline of the Earthquake Early Warning System

Disaster Prevention Measures at Plants, Works and Offices

Despite striving to prevent accidents, we were unable to completely eliminate fires and other accidents during fiscal 2009. We have nonetheless investigated the relevant causes and are taking appropriate action. We will make every effort to prevent such accidents or similar accidents from reoccurring in the future.

Accidents and Incidents at Manufacturing Locations in FY2009

Operating Location	Number of Incidents
Kobe Works	0
Kakogawa Works	3
Fujisawa Industrial Operations	0
Ibaraki Plant	0
Saijo Plant	0
Moka Plant	0
Chofu Works	0
Daian Plant	0
Harima Plant	0
Kobe Corporate Research Laboratories	0
Takasago Works	7

* After a string of fires at the Takasago Works, we are in the process of removing flammable materials and conducting comprehensive inspections to prevent any reoccurrences, whilst also compiling documentation and establishing practices aimed at eliminating risks and preventing accidents from occurring in the future.

Main Incidents in Fiscal 2009

Date and Location	Incident
July 2009 Takasago Works	Sparks caused by welding an inspection control panel landed on a bag of titanium cuttings and waste, which then caught fire.
September 2009 Kakogawa Works	Sparks caused by cutting ingots landed on a movable crane used to transport molten steel to a ladle at a continuous caster, resulting in accumulated grease catching fire.
September 2009 Kakogawa Works	External corrosion on unused heavy oil piping created a hole in the piping, resulting in heavy oil leaking out.
October 2009 Takasago Works	High-temperature slag spilled over from a vat and set fire to the base of an electric welding machine.
October 2009 Takasago Works	Slag produced during gas cutting landed on top of the pipe connecting the cutting torch, which then caught fire.
December 2009 Takasago Works	During pressing on a large forging press, scale fragments fell into an underground pit and caught fire. The fire then spread to nearby wiring.

Emergency drill at sites

The area in which Kobe Steel and Shinko Kobe Power Station (Shinko Kobe Power) are located is designated as a special disaster prevention zone containing petrochemical complexes (Kobe district). As petrochemical complexes handle large quantities of substances such as oil and high-pressure gas, they are required to have their own in-house firefighting unit and are subject to other obligations such as maintaining disaster prevention equipment. They are also required to implement comprehensive disaster prevention measures in accordance with the Fire Service Act and other legislation. Via a committee made up of the nine companies located in the Kobe district, we organize comprehensive emergency drills every year in conjunction with the Kobe City Fire Department. In fiscal 2009, we organized an emergency drill at Kobe Steel in June.

The drill involved three fire trucks and around 30 members of staff from Kobe Steel and other committee members, as well as ten fire trucks and around 30 firefighters from the Nada and Chuo Fire Departments. Based on the premise that a fire had broken out in an external tank containing hazardous materials and had to be prevented from spreading to the coal silo, the drill effectively demonstrated the committee's high level of disaster prevention awareness.

Firefighting activities on the site of an external tank containing hazardous materials

Practicing emergency care for injured victims

Spraying cold water onto the coal silo

Group Disaster Prevention Meeting

The Kobe Steel Group holds an annual Group Disaster Prevention Meeting that is attended by representatives from Kobe Steel's works, plants and offices and Group companies. These meetings give disaster prevention managers an opportunity to share information and find lateral applications for their knowledge.

The meeting held in November, 2009 was attended by 119 people from 63 Group companies. In addition to an outline of medium-term disaster prevention plans and a report on disaster prevention activities at individual sites courtesy of the secretariat, the meeting also featured a special presentation by Professor Kimiro Meguro from the University of Tokyo.

Group Disaster Prevention Meeting in November 2009

Topics

Kobelco 1/17 Walk

In January 2010, we organized the fourth Kobelco 1/17 Walk as an exercise designed to ensure safety in the event of an earthquake or other major disaster. Approximately 200 employees and their families participated in the event, which involved them walking to work from either their homes or designated train stations on the premise that they had no other option to walk to work or home due to a major earthquake.

The streets were filled with participants going through a checklist of places thought to be dangerous and confirming the locations of convenience stores and evacuations sites, equipped with maps distributed in advance. The event proved to be a meaningful exercise in terms of remembering the lessons learnt from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake 15 years on and helping employees to prepare for an earthquake or other natural disaster.

After walking up to 13 kilometers to their destination at our Kobe Head Office, participants shared their experiences with one another over a well-deserved meal consisting of steaming bowls of udon noodles and rice balls at the end of their four-hour trek.

Participants arrive at the destination of the Kobelco 1/17 Walk.