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Since the 1970s, the world has witnessed a number of serious
industrial disasters. Independent of region or type of hazard,
disasters seem to be increasing over time, especially during the
past two decades. While global environmental changes may or may not
play a role in these trends, it can be said that the
major cause for this increase is that greater numbers of people and
more valuable property are at risk and are affected by hazard
events. There has been an increasing number of devastating events
that produced significant "off-site" effects on the health and
well-being of humans and other life-forms as well as on the
nonliving environment. These chronic technological hazards have hurt
or killed thousands of people. The section below is dedicated to
some unique industrial disasters that have provoked a reappraisal of
safety issues and have paved the way to the creation of a number of
laws, policies and directives pertaining to the industrial safety. |
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On 1 June 1974 the Nypro (UK) site at Flixborough was
severely damaged by a large
 explosion
that killed 28 people. Prior to the explosion, on 27
March 1974, it was discovered that a vertical crack in
reactor No.5 was leaking cyclohexane. The plant was
subsequently shutdown for an investigation. The
investigation that followed identified a serious problem
with the reactor and the decision was taken to remove it
and install a bypass assembly to connect reactors No.4
and No.6 so that the plant could continue production.
During the late afternoon on 1 June 1974 a 20 inch
bypass system ruptured, which may have been caused by a
fire on a nearby 8 inch pipe. This resulted in the
escape of a large quantity of cyclohexane.
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In July 1976, a runaway reaction occurred in
the trichlorophenol synthesis vessel of a
 chemical plant
near Seveso, Italy. An uncontrollable surge in
temperature and pressure caused the rupture of a safety
valve, resulting in release into the air of a fluid
mixture of chemicals. This toxic cloud containing TCDD
(2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), then widely
believed to be one of the most toxic man-made chemicals,
contaminated a densely populated area about six
kilometres long and one kilometre wide, lying downwind
from the site. This event became
internationally known as the Seveso disaster, after the name of a neighboring
municipality that was most severely affected. More than
700 people were evacuated, and restrictions were applied
to another 30,000. More ... |
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In the 1969, Union Carbide
set up a plant in Bhopal,
India, to manufacture pesticides w hich
were considered essential in the drive for agricultural
self-sufficiency. The facility was part of India's
"Green Revolution" and industrialization policy. Union
Carbide facility produced and stored a particularly
dangerous chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC). The plant
experienced six accidents between 1981 and 1984, at
least three of which involved MIC or phosgene, a highly
poisonous gas used in World War I and a component in the
manufacture of pesticide. On December 3, 1984, the world
witnessed the worst industrial catastrophe in history -
often referred to as the Three Mile Island of the
chemical industry. More ... |
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At 1:24 am on April 26th 1986, Reactor 4 at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded
 and then caught
fire. Over the following 2 weeks, 3 × 1018 Bq
radioactivity were released to the environment, and were
deposited over the surrounding countryside and the rest
of Europe. The reactor was a Soviet designed pressurised
water reactor called an RBMK. At the time of the
accident, tests were being conducted on the reactor, in
the course of which, operators deliberately overrode
safety systems. Investigations revealed that the
accident was the result of a flawed reactor design that
was operated with inadequately trained personnel and
without proper regard for safety. Under the test
conditions, it was impossible to operate the reactor
safely due to inbuilt design faults.
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On the 21st September 2001, an explosion in Shed 221 of
the AZF fertilizer plant, 3 km from
Toulouse, France,
killed thirty people and injured nearly two thousand
five hundred people. Run by Atofina, which
 operates
several factories around France, the AZF plant in
Toulouse specialized in the manufacture of fertilizers,
producing ammo-nitrate fertilizers from nitric acid and
ammonia. Amongst other dangerous substances it held
important quantities of liquefied ammonia and chlorine,
combustibles, solid ammonium nitrate and fertilizers, as
well as methanol. Today, the scientific explanation for
this disaster still remains unanswered. Countless
investigations are still in progress to try to establish
the chain of events that occurred in hanger 221 in
Toulouse, where the tragic explosion took place.
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