Nature of Accidents and Catastrophes - Article Example

Accidents and catastrophes Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Nature of accidents and catastrophes and their ification 4 Interaction ofvariable to result into disaster and catastrophe 6 Modern day threats and changing trend in the frequency of disaster 8 Life cycle of a disaster 10 UK management planning for disaster management 11 Difference between disaster and catastrophe planning 12 References 12 Abstract Accidents are unexpected and unusual phenomenon which is external in nature takes place in a certain place at a particular time. These accidents led to existence of catastrophe. Accidents and catastrophes are interrelated to each other. Occurrence of one leads to the emergence of the other one. In a broad sense classification of accidents mainly depends on the nature, i.e. whether it is physical or non-physical. Further numerous responsible factors and associated co-factors for the occurrence of an accident are considered under these two broad groups. There could many reasons for an accident depending upon its nature. Classification of catastrophe is done by integrating various groups of catastrophic events of different nature. Both accidents and catastrophes are the result of interaction of various factors and co-factors in a systematic manner. Many influencing factors contribute within the system for happening of any catastrophe or accident. In this report efforts have been applied to focus on various aspects of disaster, their classification, and their management. This report describes the basic concept of different types of disaster and factors responsible for their existence. This report also provides information regarding change in the nature and frequency of disaster with the changing trend in the recent period. Introduction In the recent past days the term disaster has emerged with a reason of concern for the entire world. Today many researches and studies are being carried out at a larger scale as compared to the previous days. During those days people were aware of the term disaster but never gave much importance to that. As the human beings moved ahead on the path of technology and development the level of risk has also raised above the normal limit. Initially the concern for disaster was limited to the natural calamities with few exceptions but now the range of types of incidents causing disaster has broadened with inclusion of other factors such as terrorism and risk rose due to technological advancement. Any technological development has both pros and cons of its own. These negative aspects of any advanced technology leads to disaster formation. Nature of accidents and catastrophes and their classification Accidents can be of numerous types depending upon its nature and degree of severity. Whichever activities performed either by human interventions or by any automated system, the entire thing takes place within a system. Whenever there is a failure in the system or any part of the system which is going to affect the outcome in a negative way and also affects the ongoing processes associated with the system, accidents are said to have taken place. Basically accidents are classified in a broad sense into two categories, physical and non-physical. (Wilcock and Heimann 2008) Physical – this is the type of accident which affects any organism or any entity in physical terms. This results into physical loss of the victim. Non-physical – this is the type of accident which influences the non-physical aspect of an entity. The loss encountered due to this type of accidents is not visible since they do not affect the physical aspect of the entity. Other associated factors are included into these two categories. To have a detailed knowledge of accidents the related terminologies also have to be understood. These terminologies are associated with accidents and are used to describe various forms of accidents. They contribute to the happening of any accident. These terminologies can be identified as - Hazards – “Hazard refers to an extreme natural event that poses risks to human settlements.” (Deyle et al. 1998, p 121). Hazards are the ability of a creature or individual or activity to cause harm. This remains present within the substance or the activity and possesses the potential to cause harm. Everything present in the environment has certain inherent features which makes them capable of harming so it can be considered as hazard. Though certain hazardous substances are used for a good cause. Some substances are hazardous in one way and some can be of hazardous nature in more than one way. Risk – risk is the probability of occurrence of an incident which causes harm. This can vary with the degree of severity of the hazard. Association of risk factor to an incident does not mean its occurrence but it shows the chances of occurrence of the incident. (Peterson. R, n.d.) Emergency – it is an unplanned event or a set of activities which results into disruption of an operation or causes physical or environmental damage. Above mentioned terms are constituent of an accident which further relates to higher terms in the hierarchy which are termed as catastrophe and in a more broad view it is associated with the disaster. Disaster – this is an unfortunate event which takes place as a result of malfunctioning of any system or a specific part of a system. This could be due to an error at a single point or a set of errors at various points within the system. Disaster takes place when any hazardous element starts interacting with the environment. This could lead to occurrence of a disaster. Catastrophe - can be described as a disastrous event which has a significant influence to the environment or the society. The occurrence of catastrophe is related to the occurrence of a disaster. (SZYGENDA and THORNTON, p 1) Interaction of variable to result into disaster and catastrophe As the variables responsible for the occurrence of a disaster and catastrophe interacts with the environment the certainty of occurrence increases. These variables depending upon the degree of severity decides the level of disaster or catastrophe. From the above section if the variables are considered then the variables can be listed depending upon their degree of order as follows - The emergency is a variable which depicts a situation which has to be taken seriously. Then the disaster is considered as a more serious situation in sense of severity of the incident. Catastrophe is the most serious situation which has to be taken care of immediately. To illustrate the interaction of different variables and their interaction some examples can be cited to show the entire phenomenon. Some of the examples are - Bhopal gas tragedy, India – this incident took place on December 3, 1984 at a Union carbide pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal in India. The incident which happened was leakage of a poisonous gas called Methyl isocyanate (MIC) from the plant. When the gas spread into the atmosphere it caused different health related problems to the residents of Bhopal. Initially when the leakage of poisonous gas started it remained unnoticed by the concerned people. After the negligence that minor incident took the size of a disaster which resulted into catastrophe later on. (Ungarala, P. Bhopal Gas Tragedy: An Analysis, n.d.) Tsunami – this incident took place during the year of 2004 in the month of December. It occurred at a place name Sumatra near Indonesia. The magnitude of the earthquake was of 9.1 which took place under the sea bed and ultimately resulted into a huge loss of lives and property. Areas which were influenced by the disaster were washed off by the sea water and many people became homeless with no food and shelter for them. This is yet another good example of describing how an underwater earthquake leads to a disaster which took the form of a catastrophe at the end. (Prof. Nelson, S. Tulane University, n.d.) Above cited examples depicts the disasters caused by the nature but with the advancement of technologies people around the world are also contributing a lot in the making of a disaster. These disasters are intentional in nature and are resulted with a cause of destruction. In the recent time terrorism has scaled new verticals in context of modernization and advancement of technology being used for the purpose of terrorism. There are endless examples which can be cited to explain the terror attack serving as a form of disaster. For an instance considering the incident which took place on September 11, 2001, in USA, when the worlds most significant creation World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorist power. In this case the terrorist power caused an incident to happen which led to an emergency situation where people were still in shock to believe whatever happened to them. Here also it can be understood how different variables interacts with each other in order to give rise to a disaster or catastrophe. Modern day threats and changing trend in the frequency of disaster The environment has numerous threats which have been generated due to the advancement in technology and many developmental steps. These constructive factors while contributing to development some way or the other simultaneously contributes to the threats towards the environment. The level of development in information technology has enabled human beings to get success in many areas while this technology has also enabled the destruction oriented technology. People are also engaged in activities which are intentionally done to make a disaster happen. Different groups of people around the world use these technologies with their own motives. Earlier the set of threats to the environment was simple and mostly related to natural disasters specifically but with the change in time the nature of the threats has changed also. Mainly artificial instruments and human creations have contributed to the threats. Some of the general modern day threats are - Biological threats – these are the threats to the biological disaster which could happen if anything goes against the biological system and continues the pattern for a longer time. Many countries have developed their biological weapons for the purpose of war. Recently, Iraq was suspected to possess biological weapons which are referred as weapons for mass destruction (WMD). (Amlin, K. Iraqs Biological Weapons, n.d.) Chemical threats – chemicals also can be hazardous to the society and lead to disaster. Toxicology is the branch of chemistry which deals with the toxic chemicals. There are many chemicals like mercury, dioxins, pesticides, PVC and DEHP, and medical wastes which are hazardous to human beings. Terrorism – this is a threat which is done with an intention to carry out a disaster. There are a number of groups having their own sets of perception and their followers who perform destructive activities around the world to create mass destruction and spread violence. Now it has been seen that the frequency of disasters have been increased but the number of people dying in the disasters is getting lowered. The other noticeable point is the population affected and their economic losses are increasing by the time. The latest general trend and frequency of the disaster can be known from the figure given below. Total Number of Reported Disaster (1991-2000) (Emerging trends in disaster impact, hazards and vulnerability patterns) From the above figure it is very much clear that the number of disasters have increased with increase in the economic losses over the period of 1970-1999. Also the impact of disasters has risen up with the time. The data indicates that the occurrence of natural disaster has become more frequent with the time but the death reports have been reduced to a fair level during the time span. This has been achieved due to the technological developments which have been made for the monitoring of disasters and to give early warnings of any disaster. Life cycle of a disaster If occurrence of disasters is viewed analytically it shows a cyclical manner of occurrence during the time. When a disaster occurs it encompasses human beings and other living creatures and apart from them economic losses is also accompanied. Disaster managers identify the various stages of a disaster and represented the entire process in a cyclical form. In a broad sense the cycle includes four different steps as follows - 1. Mitigation – this is the first step in the life cycle of a disaster. In this phase all the present risks are identified and analyzed and if found potential enough then those risks are tried to be reduced. 2. Preparation – this is the step in which planning is done regarding the protection from the upcoming disaster. The equipment required for the protection from disaster is also developed in this stage. 3. Response – all the planned steps during the disaster are taken up during this stage. This is the stage which comes when the emergency occurs. 4. Recovery – this is the final stage of the life cycle in which all the victims and affected people are restored and efforts are applied to make the environment normal. Mitigation is the step which comes in the first phase of the life cycle normally starts just after a disaster hit recovery. This is due to the attention of people which remains focused towards the disaster and its affects. This helps in the mitigation phase since people already remains aware of the disaster and its effects. ( Botterell, A. 2001) UK management planning for disaster management Disaster management planning in UK has taken many initiatives in order to create a culture of disaster management. A very systematic approach has been taken to create such kind of management. The approach requires involvement of all the people from top management to the lower subordinates. A proper organization has been set up to face the disasters. The management team has many key persons having their roles and responsibilities stated to them. Based on the roles and responsibility following are the key persons of the management team - Disaster manager – this person has the control over the budget and the financial activities of the management team. Disaster reaction manager – this is the key person who acts whenever there is any disaster takes place. This person has the maximum responsibility so the person should be capable enough to handle such stressful situation and should be capable of taking correct and effective decision. This person enables the co-ordination of staffs during the disasters. Disaster recovery manager – this person is responsible for restoration related activities. They perform after the disaster strikes and try to make the normal environment and restore the victims and other affected communities. (Disaster Control Plan) Difference between disaster and catastrophe planning In the recent studies scientists have insisted on the issue that there should be a clear demarcation between the disaster and catastrophe and their management planning. Initially scientists were not concerned with the difference level between a disaster and a catastrophe but in recent years scientists and researchers have insisted on the difference between them. Researchers suggest the difference between the disaster and a catastrophe in context of the change in behavioral pattern of the society and its members. In case of a disaster destruction and lives are damaged along with the economic loss. The same thing happens in case of a catastrophe but the only difference is that in catastrophe the change in behavioral pattern of the affected population is marked at societal, communal or organizational level. If analyzed properly, the level of destruction of communal infrastructure happens more in catastrophe. Most of the local offices and organizations fail to carry out their normal work activities. The communal life of people gets disturbed in a catastrophe and mostly the education, community center, work places, etc are destroyed and it creates a form of stoppage in flow of life. The last and worst case arises when all of the community centers get destroyed and there remains no hope of help from the neighborhood community center for help. Since the catastrophe influences more area under it and it completely destroys the entire area and leave no scope of help. References Wilcock and Heimann. November 20th, 2008. Available at http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jwilcock/BlackBox_7.pdf [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Peterson, Dr. R. Agricultural & Biological Risk Assessment Montana State University. Available at http://agbiosafety.unl.edu/riskasscience.shtml [Accessed on October 12, 2009] http://www.ithaca.edu/emergency/emergency.php [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Szygenda and Thornton, Disaster Tolerant Computer and Communication Systems, available at http://lyle.smu.edu/~mitch/ftp_dir/pubs/citsa05a.pdf [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Ungarala, P. Bhopal Gas Tragedy: An Analysis, n.d. available at http://www.hu.mtu.edu/hu_dept/tc@mtu/papers/bhopal.htm [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Prof. Nelson, Tulane University, n.d. available at http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/tsunami.htm [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Amlin, K. Iraqs Biological Weapons. n.d. available at http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f02/web2/kamlin.html [Accessed on October 12, 2009] http://www.wsna.org/Topics/Workplace-Environment-You/Environmental-Hazards/ [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Emerging trends in disaster impact, hazards and vulnerability patterns. Available at http://www.adrc.asia/publications/LWR/LWR_abridged/preface3.pdf [Accessed on October 12, 2009] http://victims.jrn.msu.edu/public/newslet/spring01/disaster.html [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Disaster Control Plan available at http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/m25dcp/M25%20disaster%20plan%20commentary.pdf [Accessed on October 12, 2009] Read More