Characteristics of Accident And Catastrophes - Coursework Example

Accidents and catastrophes Introduction In considering accidents and catastrophes, it is important to note the role played by risk and hazards in realization of accidents. Risks could be defined as the odds that an undesirable event will occur while a hazard is simply the prospective to cause a disaster or damage. Accidents, events, catastrophes, disasters, emergencies, crisis and mishaps all result when hazards materialize (Greene 110). An accident can be defined as a spontaneous event that leads to undesirable impacts. It is not unusual for accidents to cause harm to people and property such as cars, furniture or even houses. Occurrence of accidents is defined by probability and though they are not as serious as disasters and catastrophes, their impacts could be severe and sometimes less severe. However, other relative terms should not be confused with accidents. For example, a crisis is a period of severe challenges or threats. For a crisis, there is ample time to prevent it from aggravating; this is, however, not always the case for accidents, emergencies, disasters and catastrophes which are apparently more serious and unpredictable as compared to events and crises (Greene 4). A disaster can cause more severe harm such as destruction of buildings, land, infrastructure and death of human beings as well; catastrophes are more severe such that they extend the damage to surrounding communities and infrastructure leaving the victims in a deplorable state and with nowhere to seek for help. This report focuses on various variables and aspects of accidents, disasters and catastrophes and elucidates existent accident, disaster and catastrophe management plans in the UK and the US. Nature and classifications of accidents and catastrophes Accidents and catastrophes are composed of two things: the occurrence and the consequences resulting from the occurrence. Occurrence of an accident or disaster results into impacts and therefore if the accident is prevented from occurring, there are no consequences. Usually, an occurrence can take place without apparent consequences being seen; however, these “near misses” are not happenings that should be allowed to occur in future; they should be prevented from happening again by cautiously evaluating and studying past occurrences. Experiences of past accidents should also be used to come up with solutions that can prevent accidents and incidents that are likely to happen (General Accounting Office Reports & Testimony). Though accidents are at times dependent on fortune, there are other factors that dictate their happening or not happening. For example, accidents have more severe consequences if they happen in places where they have never happened before; in such places, the people living there are usually unprepared since they are not experienced with similar accidents and therefore, have little or no technical know-how of tackling such disasters. In contrary, in areas where disasters have occurred in the past, the ramifications and repercussions resulting from that disaster are not optimally severe (Varley 20). In such areas past catastrophes shape people and compel them to adopt mechanisms of keeping disasters in check. As a result, such places have well calculated schemes, structures and procedures for fighting disasters. Occupational health and safety is also well developed in such areas as the people dealing with the disasters in such areas are most likely to have the sophisticated disaster response equipment and protective garments; moreover, the approach taken by experienced people is optimistic in nature and hence stands a higher chance of getting good results. Once a past experience has provided the disaster response team with the right information, the next step is usually taking a counteraction that can curb the disaster from having severe effects or better still, if possible, from happening. The main goal of preventing disasters from having intense effects is protecting life and property; counteractions to prevent occurrence of accidents and catastrophes should not be launched unless a thorough investigation has been done on past events and the danger that a disaster poses to the society. If this procedure is followed, the plan should be perfectly successful if not perfect. The idea about accidents happening by fortune is not feasible; accidents depend on how prepared the victims are to face their repercussions, whether they have protective mechanisms in position and the kind of care taken while people are in accident prone areas. Accidents and catastrophes can be classified using various classification systems. The most prevalent systems of classification categorize catastrophes into their origin, the width of the areas that they affect, the period they last, the resulting outcomes, affected terrain, solutions needed and eventually the convolution of the catastrophe and the risks involved. Provitolo emphasizes that intricacy is the best method to classify catastrophes (1). In intricacy, a multilevel scheme is used; through these levels, the convolution of the disaster is appreciated better than in any other method of classification. All these methods of classification depend on the fact that disasters and accidents can have a different scale, enormity, pace and predictability. Origin of the catastrophe is, however, the most popular and probably the oldest mode of classifying accidents, disasters and catastrophes. In this mode of classification, disasters are classified into those originating from natural and man-made sources. Manmade sources are further divided into two facets which are: attack related disasters and scientific related disasters. In this system of classification, natural disasters include tornadoes and hurricanes, earthquakes and landslides, tsunamis, storms and ocean tides, drought and famine, floods, volcanic eruptions, falling of objects from space and fires caused by the sun and lightning. Example of manmade accidents and disasters are: car, train, airplane and ship accidents; terrorist attacks and suicide bombings; wars resulting from army disagreements, chemical, biological and nuclear explosions and spilling of petroleum products among other things. Classification of disasters and catastrophes by origin or nature has some setbacks; some disasters originate from both natural and manmade sources and therefore, classifying them using this method becomes a difficult task (Hodgkinson & Stewart 36). Nature has the capacity to influence manmade sources; for example, wind can help propagate a manmade fire and aggravate it from an accident to a disaster while a manmade dam can catalyze a landslide in surrounding areas. Using solitary sources to identify disasters is deceptive; there are disparities among the many disasters that exist but the disparities have little and sometimes nothing to do with the source of the disaster. Disasters and catastrophes differ in consequences and their reactions too; they do not only differ in the sources where they originate from and for that reason, they appear to have different short-term and long term effects. In a bid to correct the natural or manmade origin-oriented system of classifying disasters and catastrophes, another modified system proposes to place some disasters such as landslides, coastal fires and sea level rise in the category of mixed manmade and natural sources. In this system, some in the natural category such as floods and dust blizzards are placed under the probability that they can be caused by human being activities while some manmade ones such as acid rain are also considered natural at times. Lead factors can also be used to classify disasters and catastrophes; these factors include: meteorological factors such as wind storm and floods; geological factors such as earthquakes, landslides, coastal corrosion and tsunami; celestial factors such as falling of asteroids; global environmental factors such as acid rain and technological ones such as bombings. Duration of the disaster impact, the length of alarm and the rate of recurrence are also other factors that can be used to identify disasters. For example lightning has an instant impact, has a random frequency of occurrence and can have a notification of minutes to hours. However, disasters can be classified on a scale (Hodgkinson & Stewart 110); Bradford Disaster Scale classifies disasters in terms of deaths, injuries and damages caused; a disaster causes over 100 human deaths and injuries and over I million Sterling pounds of damages. Interaction of variables leading to disasters and catastrophes Disasters and catastrophes result from interaction between hazards and susceptibilities. Disasters and catastrophes do not just happen; in most cases, before a disaster strikes, some precursors to that disaster are palpable. Severe disasters and catastrophes usually start in their mild forms and get more dangerous over time. For example, for a hurricane to cause damage to property worth millions of dollars and death to thousands or millions of people then it must have prevailed for a long time with its intensity increasing incessantly; the conditions have to be favorable for a disaster to get worse over time. On the other hand, disasters such as famine result from unattended less intense forms such as drought and poor farming policies on condition that the situation continues like that for many years. Another example of this phenomenon is earthquakes; they are only severe in places where buildings are constructed carelessly in a way that is not balanced or safe when the earthquake strikes. Hazards may also generate or induce occurrence of other hazards and hence expose susceptibilities. These hazards are not limited to manmade, natural, technological or even mixed sources; all of these hazards can lead to other hazards; earthquakes can easily cause overwhelming storms by interfering with sea waves such as the recent tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean. The Kobe Earthquake that happened in 1995 which is apparently Japan’s worst earthquake of all time destroyed property worth almost 3 percent of the gross domestic product and killed over 6,300 people (Louie). This earthquake is a good example of a natural disaster that can cause even more disasters; it caused breakdown of electric systems and severe damage to infrastructure. Tornadoes, storms and winds can also cause other disasters such as flooding due to breaking of dykes in dams and other water sources. Hazards range from serious to trivial hazards; it might look unbelievable, but even small things such as lack of the right equipment, expertise or training to fight a disaster may fuel or make a disaster more severe. Terrorism related incidences may also cause other disasters that would otherwise not occur; on 11th of September in the year 2001, the World Trade Center collapsed after it was attacked by terrorists with planes and infrastructure such as roads and electricity systems were destroyed as secondary effects of the attack. Nuclear and biological attacks also cause secondary disasters; apart from the impact that is sudden, the nuclear chemicals may cause diseases such as cancer which only become serious months or even years after the main attack is long forgotten (Haddow, Bullock, and Coppola 370). These variables that interact and lead to disasters and catastrophes can be classified into three broad classes which are communal, manmade and natural variables. Natural variables result from the earth spheres or physical systems while the communal variables involve human beings and human activities such as use of technical know-how, economic and cultural activities. Man-made variables constitute the modifications that have been made on the earth’s spheres such as constructed buildings, railroads, electrical systems, bridges, water channels and other manmade infrastructure. All these factors are correlated and they may cause a disaster independently or jointly in cases where one hazard results into other hazards. Some variables come from within, such as human activities, while other variables come from outside the human system, such as volcanic explosions. All these factors can readily interact; human beings can cause deforestation and hence induce disasters such as landslides. Susceptibility of an area to disasters will always depend on all the variables; those that come from within and outside a particular system. To decrease the susceptibility of a particular area to catastrophes, activities to counteract the disaster in future have to be implemented. Of all the variables, human activities have the greatest effects to susceptibilities to disasters since they interact with natural, communal and manmade environments. As a result, human activities have high capabilities and liabilities to reduce and increase susceptibility to catastrophes respectively. Modern threats and changing trends in frequency of disasters In the modern world, some disasters such as those from celestial sources are believed to exist in the archaic times since they are not so frequent. However, it should not be concluded that the disasters cannot recur in the near future. Though not often, some inactive hazards have a probability of becoming active if favorable conditions or susceptibilities are existent in areas of target. For example, most volcanoes which are dormant have chances of erupting which are as high as those of an active one as long as vulnerabilities exist; if an earthquake occurs, for example, the chances of a dormant or active volcano erupting within the radius of that earthquake are increased. Modern threats include volcanoes, landslides, earthquakes, floods, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons, atomic bombs and terrorism. Firstly, volcanoes are the trickiest threats of all time since their repercussions are profound yet their uncertainty is very high; it is also difficult to predict precisely when an earthquake will occur as the frequency of occurrence of earthquakes is irregular. Though the most remarkable volcanic eruption occurred way back in 1912 on the Alaska Isthmus, volcanic eruptions have occurred even in the recent past; nonetheless, the U.S Geological Survey considers 1912 to be in the recent past times when dating volcanic eruptions. Even in the late 1900s, volcanic eruptions have occurred; Mt. Helens erupted in 1980 (Scenta). In Alaska, the damage was so severe but because most people paid attention to warnings they received on the eruption, a lot of human lives were saved albeit plants and some animals suffered much. The volcanic ash also had blinding effects on birds and turned the land barren. In 1991, another eruption occurred in Mt. Pinatubo in Philippines and had shocking ramifications; few years after the eruption, the ash and debris, apparently deposited in valleys surrounding the mountain, were hotter than the mother magma. This particular disaster was well forecasted and thousands of lives were saved. The most fatal volcanic eruption was in 1902 at Mt. Pierre and the second most lethal Nevado Del Ruiz eruption in Colombia killing over 30,000 and 20,000 people respectively. Even today, volcanoes are still a great threat. Earthquakes are also other threats that trouble the modern world; it cannot be assumed that earthquakes exist in history since the most fatal earthquake happened in 1976 in China; which is just 33 years from now. Having killed over 600,000 people, it is followed by the Alaska earthquake that occurred in 1964 whose death toll was way lower as a result of good preparation in Alaska. Apart from earthquakes, landslides are also prevalent threats; they are more likely to happen compared to the aforementioned threats as they can be induced by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and human activities. The most fatal landslide occurred in Mt. Helens in 1980; this landslide washed off part of the volcano, almost 2 cubic miles of rocks and sludge, and triggered the volcanic eruption which came later. Even today, landslides still pose a great threat since; even though their magnitudes have reduced, human activities create good conditions for their occurrence. Of all natural disasters, floods have caused probably the greatest number of deaths; they occur more often than other disasters and for this reason, they have tormented many places neighboring the ocean especially in Asia. Just like landslides, floods are affected by other disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes. The most dangerous floods of the 20th century occurred in the US and killed over 5000 people. Floods and tsunamis occur randomly and hence response teams should always be prepared. Nuclear, biological, chemical and atomic weapons are also common threats that are worth noting. Nuclear weapons can cause intense energy changes; biological weapons such as Anthrax bacteria can cause deadly diseases and chemical and atomic weapons can cause unending genetic mutations. Terrorism, which is closely related to these weapons, is frequent, in occurrence, in some areas such as the United States; terrorism is characterized by suicide bombings among other weird attacks like use of planes in attack of the World Trade Center in 2001. Disaster life cycle, US & UK management plans and the disparity between disasters and catastrophes planning Disasters are characterized by several stages; stages depend on variables before, during and after the disaster respectively. Basically, a disaster goes through a before-impact stage, impact stage, immediately after-impact stage, revitalization stage and the extended revitalization stage. Each of these stages has its variables and response tactics. In the stage before impact, it is possible to prepare adequately for the disaster by putting the right mechanisms in position to mitigate the effects of the disaster (Cuny 205). In this stage, the disaster can be forecast and predictions can be realized by warning people of the danger that looms to be in the near future; in this stage, signs of that disaster are visible, for example, in volcanic eruptions, fire or smoke at the top of the mountain may indicate a volcanic eruption may be on the way. During the stage of impact, there is not much that can be done to prevent the disaster from happening; if inadequate preparations were made, there is no choice but for the area of target to face the disaster head-on. If predictions made at before-impact stage fail, at impact stage chances are that the disaster could have deadly repercussions and ramifications and the worst case could see thousands of people die and property worth millions destroyed. Immediately after impact, all the foreign material resulting from the disaster is cleared, the most basic systems restored, infrastructure is designed and everything slowly turns ordinary. However, the real revitalization occurs in an extended stage whereby the broken systems are reconstructed; the success of this stage depends on the extent of the disaster and the ability of the targeted area to produce resources to revamp the part damaged by the disaster (Smoke 232). This stage can take years, decades or even centuries. In planning for disasters, hazards are first identified and the likelihood for those hazards causing a disaster estimated. If the probability of the disaster happening is low, people can be allowed to continue living in the area in question. In contrary, catastrophes are severe and no estimations are given a chance; catastrophes are characterized by relocation of people and harsher catastrophe mitigation plans. In the U.S for example, prevention of terrorist related attacks is done by coming up with detailed plans and more stern policies compared to countries where terrorism is not common; planning for catastrophes involves changes in basic standards and practices so as to reduce susceptibilities in the area in question. In the United Kingdom, disaster response is given a high priority across all divides (Mathews and Feathers 5). It is incredible that the disaster response team in the U.K uses even channels like Facebook to create awareness. In the United Kingdom and the USA, insurance companies also offer packages that allow people to insure against catastrophes, disasters and accidents. Technology also forms a large part of disaster response in the United Kingdom and the United States of America; sophisticated security systems are used to prevent terrorist related incidences from recurring and high-tech machinery is used to remove debris and therefore helps in salvaging lives and property during disasters. Nevertheless, in the United States, some disaster management policies do not operate optimally as they should due to political reasons. Conclusion The modern world is not devoid of accidents, which have less severe effects, disasters which have moderate impacts and catastrophes which have the toughest ramifications and repercussions. With disasters and catastrophes occurring more frequently and randomly nowadays, systems that thwart them are needed so as to mitigate or better still inhibit their profound effects. However, to come up with successful disaster management plans, variables and hazards that result into disasters have to be clearly understood and stern policies guiding disaster and catastrophe management created and put into practice. References Accidents and Catastrophes. 27 Oct. 09. Resource, FV2101 power point. Cuny, Fred C. Disasters and Development. Oxford University Press, 1983. General Accounting Office Reports & Testimony. Disaster Recovery: Past Experiences Offer Insights for Recovering from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and Other Recent Natural Disasters. 26 Sept. 2008. 27 Oct. 2009. Greene, R. W. Confronting catastrophe: a GIS handbook. ESRI, Inc., 2002. Haddow, George D, Jane A. Bullock, and Damon P. Coppola. Introduction to emergency management: Butterworth-Heinemann homeland security series. 2nd ed. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006. Hodgkinson, Peter E, and Michael Stewart. Coping with catastrophe: a handbook of disaster management. Routledge, 1991. Louie, J. Earthquake Effects in Kobe, Japan. 9 Oct. 1996. 28 Oct. 2009. < http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/effects-kobe.html> Mathews, Graham, and John Feathers. Disaster management for libraries and archives. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2003. Provitolo, Damienne. A proposition for a classification of the catastrophe systems based on complexity criteria. Germany, Dresden: Complex Systems, 2007. Scenta. World Top Volcanoes. 28 Oct. 2009. < http://www.scenta.co.uk/nature/volcanoes/volcanoes_worldwide.cfm> Smoke, Clinton, H. Company Officer. Cengage Learning, 2005. U.S Geological Survey. Most Recent Natural Disasters Were Not the Century's Worst, USGS Says. 30 Dec. 1999. 28 Oct. 2009. < http://geography.about.com/library/misc/blcenturyworst.htm > Varley, Ann. Disasters, development and environment. J. Wiley, 1995. Read More

Though accidents are at times dependent on fortune, there are other factors that dictate their happening or not happening. For example, accidents have more severe consequences if they happen in places where they have never happened before; in such places, the people living there are usually unprepared since they are not experienced with similar accidents and therefore, have little or no technical know-how of tackling such disasters. In contrary, in areas where disasters have occurred in the past, the ramifications and repercussions resulting from that disaster are not optimally severe (Varley 20).

In such areas past catastrophes shape people and compel them to adopt mechanisms of keeping disasters in check. As a result, such places have well calculated schemes, structures and procedures for fighting disasters. Occupational health and safety is also well developed in such areas as the people dealing with the disasters in such areas are most likely to have the sophisticated disaster response equipment and protective garments; moreover, the approach taken by experienced people is optimistic in nature and hence stands a higher chance of getting good results.

Once a past experience has provided the disaster response team with the right information, the next step is usually taking a counteraction that can curb the disaster from having severe effects or better still, if possible, from happening. The main goal of preventing disasters from having intense effects is protecting life and property; counteractions to prevent occurrence of accidents and catastrophes should not be launched unless a thorough investigation has been done on past events and the danger that a disaster poses to the society.

If this procedure is followed, the plan should be perfectly successful if not perfect. The idea about accidents happening by fortune is not feasible; accidents depend on how prepared the victims are to face their repercussions, whether they have protective mechanisms in position and the kind of care taken while people are in accident prone areas. Accidents and catastrophes can be classified using various classification systems. The most prevalent systems of classification categorize catastrophes into their origin, the width of the areas that they affect, the period they last, the resulting outcomes, affected terrain, solutions needed and eventually the convolution of the catastrophe and the risks involved.

Provitolo emphasizes that intricacy is the best method to classify catastrophes (1). In intricacy, a multilevel scheme is used; through these levels, the convolution of the disaster is appreciated better than in any other method of classification. All these methods of classification depend on the fact that disasters and accidents can have a different scale, enormity, pace and predictability. Origin of the catastrophe is, however, the most popular and probably the oldest mode of classifying accidents, disasters and catastrophes.

In this mode of classification, disasters are classified into those originating from natural and man-made sources. Manmade sources are further divided into two facets which are: attack related disasters and scientific related disasters. In this system of classification, natural disasters include tornadoes and hurricanes, earthquakes and landslides, tsunamis, storms and ocean tides, drought and famine, floods, volcanic eruptions, falling of objects from space and fires caused by the sun and lightning.

Example of manmade accidents and disasters are: car, train, airplane and ship accidents; terrorist attacks and suicide bombings; wars resulting from army disagreements, chemical, biological and nuclear explosions and spilling of petroleum products among other things. Classification of disasters and catastrophes by origin or nature has some setbacks; some disasters originate from both natural and manmade sources and therefore, classifying them using this method becomes a difficult task (Hodgkinson & Stewart 36).

Nature has the capacity to influence manmade sources; for example, wind can help propagate a manmade fire and aggravate it from an accident to a disaster while a manmade dam can catalyze a landslide in surrounding areas.

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