Industrial Disaster

Globalization has influenced trade all over the world; companies have looked for new

opportunities In this era of open global market economy, hazardous industries are playing a

decisive role in the economic development and in the advancement of the economy, but

simultaneously they are causing the problem of risk to human life and environment. The

developing countries like Phillipines suffer from the acute problem of environmental pollution.

Industrial accidents and hazards have become the order of the day with new technologies, The

ever increasing mechanisation, electrification, chemicalization and sophistication have made

industrial jobs more and more complex and intricate. This has led to increase dangers to human

life in industries through accidents and injuries.

The world is suffering from these kinds of several disasters. The role of engineer is to build any

of creation by certain specification and that creation should be best suitable to perform their role

without any kinds of failure. Every creation must fail after sought after time but engineer have to

have knowledge about that failure time and engineer must make design of creation like it will not

fail for long time and more specifically it is not meet with catastrophic failure. Still, the world

suffers from such kind of engineering disasters which was the proof of bad engineering.

Engineers have ability to prevent human beings from these happenings. This resource provides

adequate information about different industrial accidents, reasons behind them and what

engineers learnt from these accidents.

An Industrial Disaster is a specific, identifiable, unexpected, unusual and unintended external

action which occurs in a particular industry, without apparent or deliberate cause but with
marked effects. It means it is a “threats to people and life support system caused by mass

production of goods and services”—exceed human coping capabilities and the environment’s

absorptive capacities. It implies a generally negative probabilistic outcome which may have been

avoided or prevented circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon,

prior to its occurrence. As a consequence, such an accident can immediately invoke thousands of

premature deaths with significant morbidity all around. Moreover, the mayhem caused to the

public is detrimental to the society and its well being.

Industrial accidents occurred in different sectors in past like chemical industries, defence

industries, mining sites, power industries and manufacturing industries. The reasons behind the

accidents are mostly same in same sector. In chemical industries, these accidents are the outcome

of flammable material explosions. This is the most frequent of the hazards however the

consequences are generally less. The effect of fire on people usually takes the form of skin burns

and is usually dependant on the exposure time and the intensity of the heat. Fire can also produce

toxic fumes like Acrolein, Carbon monoxide and Cyanides. Physical structures can be damaged

either by the intensity of the heat or combustion. It may also have an effect on essential services

like power and instrumentation which can cause an escalation of the incident that can cause

death. Example to this is about the footware factory in the Phillipines were 72 people died. Spark

from welding equipment used to repair a broken gate are believed to have caused the fire when

they ignited flammable chemicals stored nearby. Authorities described that there are few fire

exits and no fire safety training for the workers and its about the negligence of the superior about

the safety precautions the company must have.

Explosions are usually heard from far away as a ‘bang’. This is the result of a shock wave. This

overpressure can kill people but usually the indirect effects of collapsing buildings, flying glass

and debris causes far more loss of life and severe injuries. There are different types of explosions

which include gas explosions and dust explosions. Gas explosions occur when a flammable gas

mixes with air and is exposed to an ignition source. Dust explosions occur when flammable

solids, especially metals, in the form of fine powders are intensively mixed with air and ignited.

From Times Staff and Wire Reports, Firecaracker Factory Exposion Kill Five October 13,1990.

A clandestine firecracker factory exploded in the central Phillipines, killing five people and

seriously injuring seven others, policed said, Some of thosed injured were quoted as saying they

were making firecrakers from 22 pounds of chloride nitrate when one of them accidentally

ignited the chemical, which was kept in drum. The drum exploded, causing the two-story house

to collapse along with the three concrete walls nearby.

Similarly, accidents took place in defence industries previously were the result of explosions of

high explosives. In mining sites, these misfortunes are due to constructions or due to blasts of

natural gases or coal. Other than that in nuclear industries, the cause of people died was

evacuation of radioactive material. Other reasons may be industrial sites are located in

communities affected by natural disasters, equipment failures, or workers have inadequate

training or fatigue and make errorrs like the Tanker in Cavite that has been removed from Manila

Bay to prevent sinking during the typoon Labuyo which contains gas that should be delivered but

there is no markings that it is a petroluem.

Most of failure occurred was due to design of equipment and lack use of latest technology,

wrong use of equipment, confusing access system of equipment, incorrect operating instructions,

poor leadership of manufacturer, improper supervision, unsystematic safety majors and safety

system in industries, poor employee motivation and training and poor analysis of system to

eliminate these hazards. To overcome this situation it is important for engineers and organization

to work under safety majors and implement better industrial safety program in organization.

Industrial safety program that help industries to overcome the situation of accidents or reduced it

to minimum level. So, safety program deals from first step in industry to reduce damage to

persons or property. Safety program have to follow proper path to succeed from such failure

which include number of steps like find the root cause from previous accidents, analyse that

cause and identify that, also make sure about the safety major of employees in working

condition, continuously monitor the safety program and give proper training to employees at

interval of times about new safety guide and about new technology as well.

However, sometime these safety programs fail to provide suitable environment to employees

because of co-op of workers or employees in terms of safety guide. They neglect to follow the

rules for safety and it resulted into injury. Also, management take this safety standard laterally

and do not give importance as much as other departments and this negligence leads to failure.

Additionally, it is mandatory for organization or industry of having appropriate and sufficient

safety measures, the absence of these measures leads to failure. To avoid these issues company

must encourage employees by posters of safety or by sort films about safety, award of safety to

employees, provide proper training at interval of time and arrange weekly or monthly inspection
of safety in working environment of employees as well as machines, equipment or electrical

connections.

With the rapid development of industrial sector, prevention of such disasters has become the

issue of utmost importance today. The recognition of disaster risk and vulnerability reduction is

essential for sustainable development planning.