Bright Triumphs, Dark Disasters, 1980–1991

The 1980s did celebrate space achievements and Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web. But after those memorable events, this decade brought major technological disasters. The Union Carbide gas leak at Bophal, India, in December 1984 killed almost 4,000 immediately. The wreck of the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1988 cost the lives of countless ocean birds and mammals and left 11 million gallons of oil in the ocean. The darkest event was history’s worst nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26, 1986. An eighteen square-mile area surrounding the nuclear plant and its contiguous town Pripyat was made a no-man’s land, not being safe to return for 3,000 years. One last tragedy of the 1980s was the dropping of poison gas on Iraqi Kurds living in the city of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). The attack killed 3,200 to 5,000 Kurds; 210,000 were injured. The Iraq High Criminal Court in 2010 acknowledged that the Halabja massacre was an act of genocide.

The Role of Maintenance in Reducing the Risk of Technological Disasters

In this article, we begin with characterization of technological disasters, emphasizing that human errors in one or more phases of the system life-cycle set the stage for disaster. To counter the unexpected, designers include multiple independent safety barriers capable of preventing the occurrence or mitigating the consequences of such unexpected events. The integrity of the barriers depends on adequate levels of maintenance. Maintenance actions sometimes cause technological disasters, but are shown in large part to prevent malfunctions in technology control systems and safety barriers. We argue that well-planned and executed maintenance actions are key in the reduction of risk of technological disasters. In our research, we reviewed well-documented technological disasters in a variety of organizations such as commercial aviation, nuclear power generation, and petroleum and chemical processing. Using a three-factor cause analysis scheme (human error, equipment or process failure, safety barrier failure) we analyzed twelve disasters and found these factors present in each disaster description. In each analysis, we paid particular attention to the role of maintenance managers and technicians in reducing the risk of disaster. However, maintenance was also a direct causal factor in six of the twelve (50%) disasters analyzed. In addition, we identified the phase of the technological system life-cycle when the disaster occurred.

ENVIRONMENTALLY INDUCED MIGRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

The purpose of this article is to identify the specific trends of migration flows induced by negative environmental changes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, based on an analysis of meteoro-logical data it was proved that in the near future, the risk of dangerous natural disasters that might cause large-scale population movements remains no less high than in the past few years. A temporary reduction in CO2 emissions due to a reduction in industrial production and transportation along with restrictive infection control measures will be short-term and insufficient to slow down climate change. Consequently, we can expect that during the pandemic the number of environmental migrants throughout the world will not decrease and might reach about 20 million people a year only due to forced relocations caused by weather-related hazards. In this study, we use the term environmental migrants to refer to both those people who have been forced to leave their place of residence due to natural or technological disasters, and those people who have voluntarily decided to migrate under amid slow-onset environ-mental degradation. Both of these categories of migrants are already exposed to the risks posed by adverse environ-mental conditions. In the context of a coronavirus pandemic, additional risks begin to affect each group differently. Internally displaced people will face problems caused by restrictions on movement imposed in most countries, as well as poor sanitary and hygienic conditions during evacuation and at temporary accommodation centers, which greatly increase the risk of infection and further spread of the virus. Voluntary environmental migrants in most cases move because of the inability to continue their usual economic activities in the changing environmental situation in their home region and the need to find a job in a sphere which does not depend directly on natural and climatic conditions. Most often these are farmers who look for temporary employment in cites. This category of migrants will be adversely affected by the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, namely, the reduction of jobs and wages in a number of industries, especially ones that are related to public services and transportation. A cut in remittances will reduce the adaptive potential of their environmentally vulnerable home areas, and lead to further deterioration of the environment and living conditions of the population.

Modeling Long-Term Housing Recovery after Technological Disaster Using a Virtual Audit with Repeated Photography

Many communities face risks of technological disasters at fertilizer plants and other facilities. Understanding damage and rebuilding of housing supports planners in implementing policies that will enable recovery. Using repeat photography, this study audited housing rebuilding in West, Texas for three years following an explosion. Photos were combined with appraisal data to understand variation in rebuilding across parcels. Results indicate that rebuilding slows dramatically after year 1, leaving many parcels vacant three years post-disaster. Parcels with higher pre-disaster values were more likely to be completely rebuilt. Planners need targeted programming to support rebuilding of lower-value homes and address vacancies.

A comparative literature review of the methodologies to evaluate risk of NaTech disasters and Critical Infrastructure affected by natural hazard

<p>In a climate change framework extreme natural events are going to occur more frequently and intensively as a result of global warming. Therefore, the effects and consequences of climate-related natural hazards, such as flooding, heatwaves, drought, landslides and others, have the potential to become more disastrous and extensive. Consequences of such events are of particular concern considering that today’s societies are interconnected in complex and dynamic socio-technological networks and, hence, dependent more than before on Critical Infrastructures (CI) systems (such as transport, energy, water, ICT systems, etc.). Furthermore, there are also events of Natural Hazards Trigger Technological Disasters (also known as NaTech events), whereby an industrial accident caused by a natural event could affect people, the environment, and other facilities and systems. This work reviews studies in the fields of risk assessment of CI systems affected by natural hazards and NaTech events.</p><p>This study identifies and classifies: the methodologies applied (qualitative or quantitative), the type of infrastructures exposed (transport, electricity, oil, gas, water and waste water and telecommunications systems, industrial or nuclear plant) and hazard considered (flood, earthquake, lighting, landslide, avalanche, storm surge, heat and cold waves, wind), the scale of application and the level of spatial resolution.</p><p>The work provides a comparison of the scientific studies, the objectives and analysis methods to assess risk employed in the fields of CI systems and NaTech events in order to highlight similarities and differences and to guide the most suitable approach for each application case.</p>