Disaster Prevention Initiatives

The Kobe Steel Group makes groupwide efforts to comply with laws and regulations, implement measures to prevent facility accidents, and prepare for natural disasters.

The Group has established disaster prevention systems and holds regular emergency drills. We are actively undertaking these measures to prevent accidents from occurring and to minimize damage if a disaster does strike.

We will continue to raise each and every employee's awareness for disaster preparedness while continuing to carry out disaster prevention activities throughout the Group.

At the Kobe Steel Group, the head office, business units, business locations, and Group companies all promote disaster prevention management activities under the supervision of the president and the chief officer for companywide disaster prevention.

We organize the Kobe Steel Group Disaster Prevention Meeting every year in an effort to share information and strengthen disaster prevention initiatives. A total of 110 employees from 46 Group companies took part in our fiscal 2017 meeting. This year we invited an instructor from the Kobe Fire Department, who gave a talk, along with a video entitled “Case Studies of Recent Fires and their Countermeasures.” We also renewed our awareness of the importance of disaster prevention, including responding to J-ALERT (a national early warning system), dissemination of fire laws and regulations, and sharing information on case studies.

The Kobe Steel Group makes every effort to prevent fires and other accidents before they occur.

In fiscal 2017, we worked mainly on preventing accidents with electrical equipment. In the future, we will keep striving to prevent accidents throughout the Kobe Steel Group, including by sharing information in and outside the company; making thorough efforts to prevent recurrences of accidents, including similar accidents; and taking special initiatives in coordination with voluntary action plans from industry associations.

We conduct regular emergency drills at each of the Kobe Steel Group's business locations including works, plants and offices.

On June 6, Kobe Corporate Research Laboratories conducted a Hazardous Materials Safety Week PR drill together with the Kobe Fire Department. Fire Department members and about 120 employees of the Laboratories participated in the drill, which was based on a scenario of a chemical leak with several injured persons.

The Kobe Steel Group is proceeding with the formulation of a BCP, the basic policies of which are: (1) ensuring the lives and safety of employees, and (2) ensuring the supply of products and services to customers.

As one initiative in that effort, we are conducting seismic reinforcement and taking anti-flood measures according to the location conditions of each site, in order to reduce damage from natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Also, in the event of heavy damage being sustained due to a large-scale earthquake, etc., we will establish a disaster response headquarters in the head office and provide support to business locations with the aim of achieving a quick restoration.

On March 8, 2018, we carried out drills for establishing a disaster response headquarters using transceivers, which are effective for communication during a disaster, based on the scenario of damage over a wide area caused by a major earthquake in the Nankai Trough. In order to be prepared in the event of an emergency, we will continue to train and hold drills to ensure even smoother responses in the future.

To prevent memories of the Great Hanshin Earthquake from fading, we held the KOBELCO 1.17 Walk on January 20, 2018 to check the routes employees use for commuting in the event that public transportation becomes unavailable due to an earthquake or other disaster.

The 81 participants each took a Map to Help You Return Home in a Disaster, which had been distributed in advance, and walked while noting areas near the route that would be submerged in a tsunami as well as the location of convenience stores, public toilets and other points of interest. We plan to continue this event at the Kobe Head Office and Tokyo Head Office in the future.

We hold on-site disaster prevention inspections of Kobe Steel Group facilities in order to verify compliance with disaster prevention laws and regulations and to minimize risks that could potentially lead to accidents. Inspections were conducted at seven Group companies in fiscal 2017, and no significant violations were found.

Going forward, we will continue to reinforce the disaster prevention management structure throughout the Kobe Steel Group.