Accidents and Catastrophes: King CrossFire 1987 - Case Study Example

The nature of accidents and catastrophes can be classified as manmade and natural events which are of human and ecological significance. Disasters can be classified as biological (epidemic); geological (earthquake); meteorological and hydrological (drought); human conflict (terrorism, war); and technological hazardous (chemicals materials). The Nature of Accidents Man made accidents can be defined as events which must at all costs be prevented from occurring because if these events are prevented from taking place then their consequences too can be prevented. Events which have no consequences are termed as “near misses” which should be carefully analysed in order to undertake necessary actions to prevent a repetition. Hence, no near miss or an event should be wasted but instead should be used to plan future preventive strategies. An accident produces an emergency which can be handled locally without help of other authorities, however, if the emergency is not effectively managed then it can turn into a disaster which mainly calls for interaction between public and private organisations which would not have made a joint outsized effort in case of an emergency (Wright 2003). The second component of an accident comprises of the consequences of exactly how much has been learnt from a similar accident which has occurred in the past. Protection from sound procedures; good designs and systems; safe equipment and clothing are all part of a positive attitude towards safe working practices largely because of learning which has occurred from previous incidents. This learning is translated in measures and actions to protect people and property from the possible consequences of a recurrent event. The Nature of Catastrophes A catastrophe can be defined as a rare event having great damaging impacts of human as well as ecological significance. Hence, the basic characteristics of catastrophes include low frequency of occurrences and as a result are more difficult to predict while, complex interactions also hinder prediction of a recurrent event. Catastrophes are also irregular despite common seasonality of tropical storms or floods. Such natural even transcending all natural laws, exceed particular environmental features, for instance, saline soil is open to full sea water at inundation. The onset of a catastrophic event is mainly rapid and such suddenness often rules out avoidance strategies. A catastrophe is an event which mainly destroys most of a community, prevents aid provision to affected areas, hinders duties of local officials and also causes most of the community functions to cease. A catastrophe is a natural disaster which has a significant impact on human society, economy as well as on the environment. According to The Disaster Database Project by the University of Richmond, disasters requiring immediate emergency attention can be classified into three major classes: 1. conflict based disaster, such as bombing and massacre; 2. human systems failure, such as dam collapse and mine accident; and 3. natural disaster, such as earthquake. UK Disaster Management Plans The significance of disaster management plans has greatly increased since 2000 due to the intensified coverage given by the media as well as due to the much scrutiny of the public eye regarding the handling disasters and catastrophes. The United Kingdom has adapted and adjusted its emergency management by a long margin after the events of the Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak (2002), the fuel crisis (2001), 9/11 (2001) and severe flooding (2000) which have increased the public expectations from the organizations in charge of managing such major incidents. These modifications resulted in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA), this act legislated the immediate responsibilities to be carried out by category one and category two responders concerned with emergency management. The UK government had introduced some major structural changes in legislative framework responsible for civil protection through new allocations of duties to be carried out the practices. The Civil Contingencies Act, 2004 not only replaces the previous hierarchy of emergency powers but also redefines emergencies. The re-defining of emergency within the Civil Contingencies Act also broadens the roles of played by the emergency management community. The Civil Contingencies Act also includes environmental emergencies. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat overlooks the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 by means of Regional Resilience Forums as well as through local authorities. The Act requires responders to carry out risk assessments, these risks refer to the probability of possible emergency events (Walker & Broderick 2006). King Cross Fire 1987 The judicial investigations of the King Cross Fire in 1987 highlight the chief problem of communication breakage between emergency levels. Despite all the efforts of state forces including fire brigade, police, first aid staff, transportation officials and other health service officials to control the crisis, the there was lack of liaison. The investigations suggest that there should have been practice joint sessions for improving communication between emergency services as this would have certainly prevented a lot of difficulties faced by them. At that time the Home Office was accountable for emergency preparedness which had not undertaken effective emergency management planning. Even though, most of individual responding organizations carried out their strategic emergency management training, collective training was not given much importance. After the King Cross Fire, the complications arising due to uncertainty for controlling the fire were aimed to be reduced by formal evaluations and planning. In response to the King Cross Fire, the Fennel investigation introduced the Fire Precautions Regulations 1989 which was included as an amendment under section 12 of the existing Fire Precautions Act 1971. According to the regulations, all wooden escalators were replaced with metal escalators. The installation of automatic sprinklers and fire detectors was made mandatory. The introduction of five year training of department personnel was an attempt to improve coordination between emergency responding services. South-Asian Tsunami 2004 The emergency management of the Tsunami was the largest and most collaborated relief effort ever undertaken. The immediate efforts of all local and international NGOs, governments and the UN struggled to make improvement in the affected areas. Food, water, shelter and health services were mainly hindered by the vast scale of the catastrophe as well as the unpreparedness of the local areas against such a disaster. The immediate legislation passed by the Sri Lankan government was the Tsunami Act, No. 16 in 2005. The Act concerns the allowance of certain legal provisions needed for impediments, adoption and care taking responsibilities, tenancy and property issues as well as strict measures for those individuals committing fraud in Tsunami aid. The Congress passed the legislation of Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, the Global War on Terror and Tsunami Relief in 2005. The legislation allocated $40 million solely for enhancing the US tsunami program. The funds were apportioned for different purposes to National Earthquake Information Centre, National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program and also the two Tsunami Warning Centres. Other acts include the Tsunami Warning and Education Act passed by the Congress in 2006 which proposed detection, research, mitigation and also early warning responses of future tsunamis. This legislation aimed to improve the notification and detection abilities of tsunami centres and also to increase outreach efforts, modelling and mapping research as well as technical assistances for providing worldwide warnings. Foot and Mouth Disease (2001) The most serious epidemic of foot and mouth disease faced by the UK in almost forty years was in 2001. Wherever, the outbreaks were reported, the cloven-hoofed animals of that area were slaughtered while a ten-kilometre exclusion zone was set up by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which is now called the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. According to many, the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001 was poorly handled by the UK government. The immediate emergency step taken by the British Government was the culling of livestock as a preventative measure to save the export market. Many experts believe that vaccination of this livestock would have been a better option for protecting British Export Markets. The undertaken policies resulted in disastrous effects on the British countryside as roughly eleven million animals were slaughtered. The estimated of the British economy is between £8bn and £20bn, while the export market is worth roughly £630m. The consequences of the emergency management eradication policy for the Foot and Mouth Disease could have been predicted as it required immediate culling and closing of the country side. The exclusion policy of all people from the countryside had disastrous impact on the agricultural and tourism sector. The Foot and Mouth Disease does not affect human being and neither is it fatal towards animals, but as an immediate preventative steps for saving the export market, this strategy was adopted. The UK government should have adopted the policy of ring-vaccination rather than preventative slaughter of livestock. In accord, the affected animals would have recovered with treatments and this has been a standard policy recognised in the rest of Europe. Research by Williams and Ferguson (2002, 2004) and Ferguson and Williams (2002) suggest that whilst this eradication programme was being implemented, no consideration was given to the drastic loss of income within the complex tourism and recreation sector. The handling of Foot and Mouth Disease crisis can be described as nothing more than confusion, disorder and delay. The poor emergency management of the food and mouth disease in 2001 can certainly be better handled through the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The Act brings transparency in multi agency approaches and fills in the gaps of duties through uniform and consistent approach. This ensures effective planning to counter such risks. Severe Floods The United Kingdom has always experienced severe flooding and has adopted suitable measures and emergency management plans to deal with such natural catastrophes. Floods directly affect the quality of life, for instance, the 2007 floods severely disrupted transportation infrastructure as well as electric, water and sewage systems. Resilience is crucial in terms of effective management of such events this can be broadly divided into two areas. First is resilience of structures and infrastructures which supports our lifestyles and second, is general societal preparedness towards such events. Due to the relative loss of infrastructure of affected areas, flood resilient constructions needs to be encouraged (Ketteridge & Fordham 1995). The reconstruction strategies of service networks including railways, pipeline, roads and cables requires cautious situational planning through hazard mapping and identification in order to reduce if not eliminate the risks of widespread structural failures. The incentives for construction of proactive designs which are resilient towards climatic effects such as severe flooding need to provide in the form of decreased taxes for construction companies embarking on hazard resistant building. The Sustainable Buildings Taskforce has suggested that modern standards of flood resistance should be devised for all future construction within flood risk areas. Management of climatic disasters and climatic variability such as floods is a challenge for the existing government emergency management. Even though, the assessment and prioritising of risks requires expertise, it should not be carried out in isolation. In the case Uk emergency management, distancing the public from risk management is potentially troublesome as public involvement is a significant part of imbedding resilience. For effective emergency planning, there needs to be strong links between category 1 responders and the public within emergency management. The overall preparedness of UK Resilience is centralising on the continuation of commercial activities and emergency services. The importance given to developing plans for ensuring the stability of both these functions within emergency management is doubtless but adequate participation of the general public needs also to be addressed. Human Induced hazards such as terrorism acts also need to be addressed while planning resilient infrastructure. Although the sustainability and security of UK infrastructure is difficult to measure in terms of terrorist activities, they are still worth a concerted investigation when designing structures which could be potential terrorist targets in order to minimise the structural impacts of such attacks. The UK emergency management levels of strategies and operations would certainly benefit from quick access to construction plans in events of fires, floods and also terrorists bomb attacks. It should also be noted that effective exchanges of information should be conducted in order to facilitate easy emergency access of such building structure and schematics. Impacts of Terrorism on Preston, London The impacts of terrorism in Preston area raise questions regarding the security of other areas on the probability of other terrorist incidents occurring at the same time. The London emergency management would act in a strategic synchronized manner in a scenario of terrorism striking a small area such as Preston. The anticipated steps of responding organizations have been based on the lessons learned from the London Bombings of 2005 and strategic emergency response followed during the crisis. The initial emergency response to terrorism in Preston is expected to be swift with the arrival of emergency services within minutes after calls received by 999 control centres. The situation would be assessed in terms of locations of terrorist bombs and evacuation of masses from the scene. Emergency responses to modern day threats such as terrorism in the UK have been have been well planned by the UK government. Security across London would be immediately tightened after such an incident. The hidden officers would be given order to shoot if a suspect was seen carrying bomb under surveillance or if he decline to surrender. Transport and telecommunication services would be highly disturbed due to the number of emergency calls on the network. However, the option of telecommunication devices being used as bomb triggers would also be considered. If the terrorism act was targeted on the underground transportation system then the entire London transportation system would be badly affected. The economic impact of a terrorism act in Preston area would be majorly critical as the markets will be put on hold due to transportation and communication meltdown. These are some of the impacts of terrorism in a small area such as Preston. Anti-terror Legislation in the UK Terrorism related legislation in the UK did not receive much attention until the 9/11, during this period, only the Terrorism Act of 2000 introduced new laws which were more unified and were also permanent against political violence than previous laws. This act is also regarded as a reflection on paramilitary ceasefires which had been brought by the Belfast Agreement of 1998 that had laid more emphasis on fighting international terrorism. After 9/11, Crime and Security Act of 2001 was one of the initial government steps to counter rising terrorism in the UK (Kitchen 2002). To counter jihadist violence through legal actions, the Terrorism Act 2005 and also of 2006 have both been relatively stringent than the other one. These terrorist acts allow convicted individuals to be jointly convicted of offences such as solicitation of murder and also according to acts such as Explosive Substances Act 1883 as well. The catastrophic event of 9/11 attack introduced a severe form of terrorism activity for the United Kingdom government to deal with which it had never faced before. The UK government attempted to counter the terrorism threat through many severe legislations and acts. The UK government has demonstrated a variety of emergency management high profile exercises to express its commitment towards fighting terrorism for instance, the London Underground evacuation exercise conducted in September 2003.However, the occurrence of the London bombings of 2005 reveals the ineffectiveness of these acts (Langley 2006). United Kingdom terrorism laws are one of the most lengthily debated anti terrorism laws in the previous decade. Public policing powers and regular methods of scrutinisation and investigation of criminal offences need to be addressed in terrorism legislations as these structures provide much of the security services. Often counter terrorism acts are regarded as alienating the public on measures which appear to be disproportionate. The origins of the Terrorism Act 2006 can be observed as consequences of 2005 London Bombings, which also introduced a 12 point plan by the Prime Minister. The Terrorism Act 2006 includes offences of preparations and training and also broadens the prohibition powers as well as the detention powers by extending the period to twenty eight days instead of the proposed ninety days since this extension had received parliament rejection on the basis of outrageous refusal of liberty. List of References (1998). Responding to disaster : the human aspects. UK, Emergency Planning Society. Great Britain. (2004). Civil contingencies Act 2004: consultation on the draft Regulations and Guidance. Norwich, Stationery Office Ltd.].   Ketteridge, A.-M., & Fordham, M. (1995). Planning for floods: the UK emergency planning picture. Enfield, Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University. Kitchen, T. (2002). Planning in response to terrorism: the case of Manchester, England. Journal of Planning Literature. 16, 561-643. Langley, A. (2006). The bombing of London 2005. Oxford, Raintree. United Kingdom. (1994). UK national report for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. London, UK IDNDR Secretariat, Royal Academy of Engineering. Walker, C., & Broderick, J. (2006). The Civil Contingencies Act 2004: risk, resilience, and the law in the United Kingdom. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Williams, C., Ferguson, M. (2002), "Leisure and tourism industry providers: undervalued in rural resource land management?", paper presented at the UNESCO 2002 Symposium on Tourism and the Natural Environment, Eastbourne, . Williams, C., Ferguson, M. (2004), "The impact of the closure of the UK countryside on leisure and tourism industry providers", Leisure Studies Association Newsletter, No.68, . Wright, A. (2003). Focus: Emergency planning - Public speaking - With UK fire services delivering their integrated risk management plans, Alan Wright emphasises the need for effective communication. Fire Engineers Journal. 46. Read More