Environmental Accidents and Catastrophes - Case Study Example

Accidents can be described as events which can be manmade or natural having severe implications on both human life and infrastructure. These accidents can turn in to disaster given the severity of consequences of the events. The nature of accidents depends upon two parts: the event and the consequence. The event of the accident needs to be prevented through assessments of past events. The consequence is the component of the accident on which future strategies are based on as it equips us with the knowledge of what to expect and also how to handle it. The root cause analysis is carried out to prevent future accidents. However, the root cause of a rare and random accident is non-identifiable and makes it difficult to manage its potential consequences (Choi 1996). Catastrophe is a rare event in which the consequences are of greater degree and drastically affecting both human life and infrastructure. Even though, by nature catastrophes are rare, they leave a larger impact and more than often are difficult to foresee. Natural catastrophes include severe floods and tropical storms. In contrast to accidents, catastrophes are difficult to manage. These catastrophes can be geological, biological, conflict based and also technological based (Gunn 2003). An Overview of UK Disaster Management Plans Disaster Management planning has gained much importance since the increase in wide scale disasters since 2000. The UK emergency management plan has too evolved a lot since the events of the severe floods (2000), 9/11 (2001), the fuel crisis (2001), Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak (2002), and so on. The current UK disaster management plan centres on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. According to the Act, the responders to emergency situations were classified as category one responders and category two responders. A new legislative framework has been established by allocating specific duties to be carried out. The 2004 Act clearly re defines an emergency and introduces and modifies the existing roles of the overall community. Environmental emergencies were included for the first time in UK legislative framework for emergency management. The Civil Contingencies Act is overseen by the Contingencies Secretariat though local authorities and also the Regional Resilience Forums. Category 1 responders are required to carry out evaluations of the probable emergency and its risk management (O’Brien & Read 2005). UK Resilience and Reconstruction Approach A holistic approach during disaster management is called as resilience which includes all elements of the disaster management cycle. The government structures, communities, civil society and individuals are required to adjust and adapt to present and as well as future threats in order to be resilient to hazards. The UK resilience approach to both natural and manmade catastrophes has had significant changes with the introduction of Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The previous system of emergency responding hierarchy of organisations in terms of authority has been clearly redefined by the Act. Massive changes driven by the events can be observed in the UK civil protection. The main reform changes have been at the local level in an attempt to foster effective communication amongst response agencies. The structure of the UK civil protection remains mostly the same with the government giving the supervisory guidelines to the local agencies to follow through with the decisions. The reconstruction strategies prepared for meeting future disasters require situational planning in hazard prone areas for constructing proactive designs (Lancaster 2005). Possible Impacts of Terrorism on Preston Considering the immediate steps taken by the emergency responding services during the London bombing 2005, if terrorism strikes in Preston, the immediate step of the police officers will be to tighten security not only in Preston but the rest of UK and potential target points as often terrorism attacks operate in a series of explosions. The evacuation of the Preston public from the affected area and the simultaneous risk of their hasty evacuation will be assessed. It is anticipated that the impacts of a terror attack in Preston would be less severe than the London bombings in 2005. Security across UK and Europe will be immediately tightened while the police and health services would carry out their services. Given that the impact on transportation service after the 2005 bombings was not as severe since the transportation services resumed in less than 24 hours (Whalley & Farmer & Brewin 2007), a major effect on Preston Transportation can not be expected. However, the feelings of insecurity and possible future event would still be high. Other impacts on Preston area include the likely damage of infrastructure which would take time to rebuild. A likely consequence of the terrorism in Preston would be the further legislative severity demonstrated by the parliament in terms of strict legal actions against terrorists. Anti-terrorism Legislations Apart from the present day threats of natural catastrophes such has serve floods, the UK also faces the threat of terrorism. The British parliament has passed a series of Acts targeted at all kinds of terrorism instead of specifically associated with Northern Ireland terrorism. The timings of each passed Act have been influenced by the Attacks of 9/11 and the London bombings of 2005 as well as by the politics of the War on Terrorism. The first Terrorism Act of 2000 gave clear definition of terrorism which extended to terrorist organisations other than those of Northern Ireland. The 2001 Anti-terrorism Act included measures which had been previously rejected from the 2000 Act on the basis of being extreme. The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 further doubled the detention period of terrorist periods mainly by acknowledging the time taken for forensic evaluation of weapons. The 2003 Act also modified Section 4 of the 2001 Act (Hanlon 2007). The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 introduced the control order which caused a long parliamentary dispute for the approval of the Act. The Terrorism Act 2006 was structured in haste response to the 2005 London bombings. The Act called for a 28day detention period after the request for 90 day was turned down by the parliament. The 28 period was justified on the basis of the time needed to assess data encrypted on thousands of hard disks. The most current Act passed by the UK parliament is the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 which required the convicted terrorists to give notice about their whereabouts and also allows the police to question the suspects once they have been charged although not convicted (Hanlon 2007). Analysis of the Flixborough Accident (1 June 1974) The Flixborough accident in 1974 resulted from an explosion in a chemical plant near the village of Flixborough. The explosion claimed the 28 lives and left 36 seriously injured. The official inquiry in to the Flixborough accident determined the cause of unexpected lateral stresses on the bypass pipe which had exploded during an extreme pressure surge. The pipe had been further mounted on temporary poles which twisted during the pressure surge. The pipe was not designed to handle heavy pressure and the engineers structuring the pipe were not experienced enough to have foreseen the high pressure blow. The Flixborough Disaster resulted in a large protest regarding industrial plant safety (Graham & Cooper 2006). The legislation occurring from the Flixborough Disaster was the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH) regulations which tightened the previous government regulations overseeing the potential hazards of industrial processes. The disaster management during the process was well managed given the resources and attention paid to emergency management in the 1970’s (Graham & Cooper 2006). The COMAH regulations were specifically aimed to reduce the risks and hazards of a potential major industrial accident such as the Flixborough Disaster. The COMAH regulations are divided into Upper Tier and the Lower Tier for operating based on the size and risks of the inventory. The authorities responsible for enforcing the COMAH regulations are the Environment Agency (in Scotland) and the Health and Safety Executive (in UK). Analysis of the King's Cross Station fire (18 November 1987) The King Cross Fire has started in a wooden Escalator which resulted in a dangerous flashover claiming 31 lives. In the immediate disaster management of this crisis, four specific groups were involved: fire services, police, ambulance service and the staff of London Transport. The main problem with the immediate management team was the lack communication and authority between the four services. For instance, the police had assumed the action of moving the people upwards, without communicating their actions to the LT or even the senior police officer. Further complication emerged when the fire services intervened and required the people to be moved downwards in order to get them far as possible from the fire. The performance of the London Transport staff can be scrutinised for their lack of coherence within the services. The low grade staff took orders directly from the police rather than their officials (Allinson 1993). While assessing the crisis situation several concerns arise regarding the performed emergency operations. The main object of the police is to manage peoples, the fire service to control the fire, ambulance service to treat the injured, whereas, the role of London Transport staff remains unclear as their main task was not to quench fires as it was not regarded as a safety culture of their jobs. Nonetheless, the staff carried out services considering it as routine procedure. The ultimate authority and power of the situation was not defined. The police took charge upon arrival but lacked adequate emergency training for handling fires. Coordination was another issue as police should have managed to link with the fire services. The investigations in the crisis management of the King Cross Fire highlighted the lack of communication as the primary reason for failure. After the Fennel investigations thorough evaluations of the emergency services, an amendment was made under the Section 12 of the Fire Precaution Act of 1971. This amendment was the Fire Precautions Regulations 1989 which smoking and called for replacements of all wooden escalators with metal ones. The law also called for automatic sprinklers as well as fire detectors. A new development to the coordination training amongst emergency services was also observed after the emphasis of the Fennel Report on lack of communication amongst responding services. Decision making in a crisis is severely affected by the communication linkage both within and amongst emergency services. In context of external communications, research reveals that most formal responding services fail to communicate effectively. For instance, the evacuation of the people during the Kind Cross Fire (1987) has led to a serious concern over the potential communication problems. The use of technical terminology further complicates the disaster management for other responding services for example, during the Flixborough disaster (1974), the requirement of specialist advice regarding the likely toxicity of the products was ignored by police officials (Drysdale 1992). Analysis of the Foot and Mouth Disease (February 2001) The Foot and Mouth Disease cost the UK private sector more than 8 billion euros and it cost six million euros from the public sector. Around 7 million animals were culled for the sake of preventing further spread of the disease. The epidemic was caused by a virus. The UK government steps to implement the procedure of culling of every animal affected by the virus eventually stopped the further spreads of the disease. The government elections had been postponed due to the Foot and Mouth Disease Crisis which had directly put the government under a lot of pressure and consequently resulted in hasty decisions and ineffective emergency management (Great Britain 2002). The emergency management of the Foot and Mouth Disease was far from handled in a cautious manner. Almost 80% of the farm animals being culled were clean of virus and only resulting from a miscalculation regarding the epidemiology of the disease. Not only the agricultural industry and agricultural supported UK industries were affected but also the tourism industry. Despite the need for hasty decisions, many experts regard vaccination of the livestock as a better option which the UK government had disregarded on the basis of the large scale of the crisis (Woolhouse et al. 2001). The further implementation of the exclusion policy of everyone from the affected area led to more loss of the UK agricultural and tourism industry. Ironically, the Foot and Mouth Disease does not have bad consequences on the Humans and it is rarely fatal on the animals. The immediate steps to protect the export market have been disastrous. The standard European policy for dealing with the Foot and Mouth Disease has been through ring-vaccination instead of large scale culling of livestock (Great Britain 2002). The future emergency management of Foot and Mouth Disease is expected to be better handled with the implementation of the Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 which allows transparency of the order ensures effective management. Analysis of the Severe Floods (June 2007) The severe UK floods of 2007 demonstrated the most effectively planned disaster management. It was the biggest UK rescue effort carried out by all responding services and organisations. The Environment Agency had described the entire disaster as “critical” and in need of collective planning. Immediately, the Health Protection Agency had given the warnings to avoid the flood water for preventing contraction of water-borne diseases. The Crop damage was immense with almost 40% of the pea crop was damaged. The vegetables prices were expected to sharply rise in the next few months of the disaster. The government’s response to the 2007 floods included the increase in risk management allocated spending from 200 million pounds to 800 million pounds within the time frame three to four years. The immediate procedures included aid for the flood victims and also an official meeting of COBRA for co-ordinating a better response for handling the crisis. Despite the Government’s best efforts, it was heavily criticised by the Hull council on the basis of lack of support and financial aid. The council leader had even gone to term Hull as the “the forgotten city” (Lane 2008). The majority of criticism revolved around the absence of army for help and despite the responsibility of aid being on four departments, not even one was held accountable. The public inquiry into the management of the crisis revealed the lack of preparedness on the government’s part despite the warnings. According to Sir Menzies Campbell (leader of liberal democrats), "With sophisticated weather forecasting as we now have, particularly in relation to what’s happened over the weekend, there are quite a few questions as to how it was that flood-prevention measures were not in place or were not more effective.” (Lane 2008: 95) List of References ALLINSON, R. E. (1993). Global disasters: inquiries into management ethics. New York, Prentice Hall. CHOI, B. C. K. (1996). Recording, Notification, Compilation, and Classification of Statistics of Occupational Accidents and Diseases: The Thai Experience. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 38, 1151. DRYSDALE, D. D. (1992). The King's Cross Underground fire. Fire safety journal, 18.1992,1. Barking, Elsevier Science Publ. GRAHAM, J., & COOPER, K. (2006). The Flixborough disaster. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W., BBC Active. GREAT BRITAIN. (2002). Origin of the UK foot and mouth disease epidemic in 2001. [London], Dept. for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. GUNN, A. M. (2003). Unnatural disasters: case studies of human-induced environmental catastrophes. Westport, Conn, Greenwood Press. HANLON, L. (2007). UK Anti-Terrorism Legislation: Still Disproportionate? INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS. 11, 481-515. LANCASTER, J. F. (2005). Engineering catastrophes: causes and effects of major accidents. Cambridge, Woodhead. LANE, S. (2008). Climate change and the summer 2007 floods in the UK. GEOGRAPHY -LONDON-. 93, 91-97. O'BRIEN, G., & READ, P. (2005). Future UK emergency management: new wine, old skin? Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal. 14, 353-361. WHALLEY MG, FARMER E, & BREWIN CR. (2007). Pain flashbacks following the July 7th 2005 London bombings. Pain. 132, 332-6. WOOLHOUSE M, et al. (2001). Epidemiology. Foot-and-mouth disease under control in the UK. Nature. 411, 258-9. Read More