Challenges and Opportunities for Assessing Nature of Accidents and Catastrophes - Assignment Example

Report Step 1 Nature of Accidents and Catastrophes: Accidents and catastrophes occur everywhere on the face of earth, varying in the scale of magnitude from place to place and depending upon the factors of their control from time to time (E. L. Quarantelli. 1978). An accident is an unplanned event that results in unacceptable consequences especially causing injury to a small number of individuals or modest damage to physical structures e.g. a car or a house. An accident can also be a damaging event like an industrial mishap. Accidents always occur by chance. Major accidents as defined in COMAH Regulations are the unexpected, sudden, unplanned developments in the course of an operation that lead to serious danger to people and environment both on site at the place of work and off site. A catastrophe is that disaster which not only disrupts society but may cause a total break down in day to day functioning. How accidents become catastrophes. Accidents are technical hazards and pose risks in industrial areas and cities. The accidents grow into the disasters when they are triggered by the magnitude, intensity, frequency, and duration. For instance, an incidence of fire in a house can be an accident. But, when the same fire grapples the whole area and is not controlled, or it happens more frequently the same accident becomes a catastrophe. A disease when not cured and controlled can become a catastrophe. Similar is the case with famines, droughts, floods, storms, or metereorite strikes. Classification on the basis of human or nature’s basis Most commonly the accidents occur due to human failure and disasters occur due to natural reasons but human failure can lead the accidents into natural disasters too. There are various causes of human failures leading to the accidents. These include job factors, individual factors, organizational and management factors. These factors combine to become the human competence to deal with an accident (E. L. Quarantelli, 1998). However, the droughts, famines, epidemics, storms, earth quakes, meteorite, or floods can be called the natural disasters. Emergencies involved in each case The accidents become catastrophes when most or all of the community built structure is heavily impacted, local officials are unable to under take their usual work roles, most if not all of the everyday community functions are interrupted, help from nearby communities can not be provided. Catastrophes require different types of planning and managing than in case of accidents. The kind of emergencies involved in accidents is special arrangements by one or more of the emergency services by the local authority, for initial treatment, rescue and transportation of injured or dead people. This emergency involves large number of people. The public calls, media and police are handled on emergency basis. Under this situation, more resources and organizations are mobilized to cater for deaths, injuries or homelessness for a larger number of people. These emergencies can be classified according to the human or natural causes of disaster. In case of a disaster caused by human mistake, since the damage is usually limited, therefore, the emergency described under accidents would be employed. Whereas, in case of natural disasters larger level of emergencies described under catastrophes would be involved. Step 2 Modern Day Threats and their expected outcomes for a densely populated city in UK The modern day hazardous threats, like terrorism as a major disaster can have a deeper and longer negative impact on the lives of the people in UK’s big cities like Preston and London. UK is more venerable to the disasters like terrorism because of her role in war against terrorism led by USA. There is a major Diasporas of Arabs, Afghanis and Pakistanis living in these big cities of UK. The Islamic militants target the soft aims like mega shopping centers, railway stations and public libraries where a larger damage to human life and property can be achieved by them. The terrorism cannot be counted as a mere incident or accident. Any terrorist attack can become a major disaster or can turn into a catastrophe, if countermeasures are not planned and preventive steps taken in advance (PV Sharma, 2006). This type of hazard has already occurred in USA on 9/11 in 2001. In Madrid train attacks 2004, and London bombings 2005. Therefore, it is, but necessary that litigation, preparedness, response and recovery must be planned in advance. This is the pre-impact period for UK which must be reckoned with and sufficient warning may be availed by her before any unfortunate incident of terrorism happens. Due to the spatial variability of London with respect to vulnerability, it is utmost necessary that special preparedness must be kept before hand. Legislation in USA In the USA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established in August 2002, in response to the terrorist attacks of terrorism on 9/11/2001. The DHS was made responsible for the protection of citizens and national assets from any potential attack in future. Step 3 Range of different catastrophes, lessons learnt and implications for legislation In Flixborough, there was a cyclohexane plant that consisted of a train of six reactors in series that exploded on 27 March 1974. 28 deaths and 36 injuries occurred. The consequences occurred in 53 reported injuries. The key lessons learned were that Only limited calculations were under taken on the integrity on the bypass line. Maintenance procedures were not followed. Plant lay out was not followed. The concerned with the design were not consulted. Construction and lay out of the plant did not consider the potential for the major disaster happening instantaneously. Control room design should have been able to withstand hazard events. In Bradford earthquake disaster, the death toll started from ten and ended at 25000 at a magnitude of 4.38 rector scale. Recently the Katrina in USA and Tsunami in Indonesia played havoc with the lives and properties of thousands of the affected people in the regions. Tsunami Experience and learnt lessons The 2004 Tsunami was the deadliest disaster in recorded human history. The death toll was 200,000. The countries affected were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Bangladesh. Apart from the deaths, the tropical climate resulted into the deaths of people due to epidemics like cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and hepatitis. World food program reported that 1.3 million people were short of food after tsunami. The world community provided US $7 billion as aid to the affected people of tsunami. US Aid, World Bank and Asian development Bank were the main partners in the reconstruction efforts after Tsunami (Lay, T., Kanamori etc,2005). Apart from the economic and human losses the environmental and social losses were also too many for the survivors. The major lessons learnt in the affected countries were the flood warning systems improvement, the underwater seismic survey improvements and emergency planning for the disasters like big catastrophes like tsunami. The business and household were not allowed near the seaside. Legislative implications. The Tsunami disaster was responded in all the affected countries by invoking the legislation on the future protection of citizens and properties. The countermeasures were also enacted to forewarn about the earth quakes and floods. Step 4 UK’s Disaster Management Plans, Legislative development and reconstruction strategies As a direct result of Flixborough, the HSE set up a committee of experts’ advisory committee on major hazards (ACMH). The ACMH produced three reports, in the first report the ACMH proposed the three part strategy for managing major hazards consisting of identification, prevention, control and mitigation. Identification of installations preventing or liable to present a major hazard involved both recognition of the fact by the operator concerned and notification of it to the statutory authorities. ACMH defined major hazards by reference to a list of name chemical substance in quantities above certain thresh holds which were considered to have the potential to cause series of set consequences in the event of a major accident (Ron De Cort, 1994). Prevention/control involved the operator assessing the process to determine the risks and consequences of accidents, and using the information to check that appropriate precautions were taken to ensure safe operation. UK disaster management plants legislation and reconstruction strategies. The center piece of these is the “Triple lock”, which ensures emergency powers will only be available if, and emergency that threatens serious damage to human welfare, the environment or security has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur, it is necessary to make provision urgently in order to resolve the emergency as existing powers are insufficient and it is not possible to bring forward a bill in a usual way because of the need to act urgently, and emergency regulations must be proportionate to the aspect or effect of the emergency they are directed at. The Act is separated into 2 substantive parts. Emergency Planning and reconstruction efforts at the Regional level in England. The objectives of regional planning work are improving coordination across the region and between regions, improving coordination between central government and the region, and improving coordination the region and local responders. The other parts of UK legislation on hazards control include: Pipe line safety regulations of 1996, major accident control regulation (MACR), and radiation emergency preparedness and public information regulations of 2001 (REPPIR), control the major accident hazards (COMAH 1999). Pipe line Safety Regulations 1996 (PSR); these regulations apply to pipeline carrying hazardous substances above specified pressures. They implement council directive 96/82/EC known as the Seveso 2 Directive, and amended by Directive 2003/105/EC and replaced the control of industrial major accident hazards regulations 1984 (CIMAH). Implementation of legislation: The first stage of the legislative program to implement the three-pronged strategy was the introduction of the notification of installations handling hazardous substances regulations 1982 (NIHHS). These required notification to the HSE of any site at which any dangerous substance listed in the regulations was present in quantities above certain thresh holds. The purpose was to secure the identification of sites having major hazard potential. In stage 2 of implementation hazard survey regulation were implemented. Commission of the European communities (CEC) that resulted into European policy development including 1966 Feyzin, France, 1975 Beek ,Holland, 1976 Seveso , Italy. In September 2003 the European commission has launched the first of several studies as part of its review of the Seveso 2 directive (96/82/EC), implemented in Great Britain through the control of major accidents hazards regulations 1999. The first study is on the ‘effectiveness of the Seveso 2 directive’ and mainly focuses on the adequacy of the directive to prevent major accidents and mitigate their consequences, the main requirements of on-site operators, the impact of the directive and how affectively it has been implemented, and whether it has created any market distortion. Sources 1. Lay, T., Kanamori, H., Ammon, C., Nettles, M., Ward, S., Aster, R., Beck, S., Bilek, S., Brudzinski, M., Butler, R., DeShon, H., Ekström, G., Satake, K., Sipkin, S., The Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake of December 26, 2004, Science, 308, 1127–1133, doi:10.1126/science.1112250, 2005 2. E. L. Quarantelli. January 1978, Disasters: Theory and Research. ISBN 6754320 3. E. L. Quarantelli. November 1994, Chemical Disasters : Preparations & Responses at the Local Level IBN 459087765 4. E. L. Quarantelli (Editor) March 1998, What Is a Disaster? : Perspectives on the Question. ISBN 20098765 5. Ron De Cort, 1994, vol.3.. MCB UP limited. 6- PV Sharma. 2006. 9/11 and aftermath; Terrorism at Worst. New Delhi publications . India. Read More