Damages fatal accidents

The author still remembers a fatal accident in one of the DRDO laboratories at Pune, India in which 6 persons lost their lives in addition to large scale damage to the government property. The root cause, which came to light after the enquiry, was that the persons involved were not properly trained and were unaware of the consequences of not following the stipulated procedures. 

Several kinds of failures may compromise safety and productivity of industrial processes. Indeed, faults may affect the efficiency of the process (e.g., lower product quality) or, in the worst scenarios, could lead to fatal accidents (e.g., temperature runaway) with injuries to personnel, environmental pollution, and equipments damage. In the chemical process fault diagnosis area, the term fault is generally defined as a departure from an acceptable range of an observed variable or a parameter. Fault diagnosis (FD) consists of three main tasks fault detection, i.e., the detection of the occurrence of a fault, fault isolation, i.e., the determination of the type and/or the location of the fault, and fault identification, i.e., the determination of the fault profile. After a fault has been detected, controller reconfiguration for the self-correction of the fault effects (fault accommodation) can be achieved in some cases. 

In chemical processes, several kinds of failures may compromise safety and productivity. Indeed, the occurrence of faults may affect efficiency of the process (e.g., lower product quality) or, in the worst scenarios, could lead to fatal accidents (e.g., temperature runaway) with injuries to personnel, environmental pollution, equipments damage. 

When organic solvents are used, the effective dermal resorption must be controlled by means of suitable protective measures. The degreasing effects of solvents increase the dermal resorption of chemicals as a consequence of damage to the skin barrier. Chemicals which can be absorbed percutaneously and which have caustic effects are incorporated extremely quickly and effectively through the skin. Fatal accidents with hydrofluoric acid and phenol are well known in the literature, the chemical incorporation being effectively increased by the caustic effect of these compounds. Lethal amounts of these substances can be incorporated within a short period of time. 

Corrosion costs society in three major ways (i) it is very expensive monetarily (ii) it is a major waste of natural resources at a time of increased concern over damage to the environment (iii) it can result in fatal accidents. 

The final chapter discusses the consequences of corrosion such as economic losses, loss in production, fatal accidents resulting in injuries and loss of lives and damage to our living environment by polluting the environment. 

A Communist Party official revealed on Friday [4 December 1987] that radiation exposure was still a problem at the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine and said three fatal accidents had occurred there this year. 

When accidents do occur, there is a big variation in their severity. The same cause may sometimes result in damage-only accidents and at other times result in fatalities. This is due to the many degrees of freedom in a motorway system, including large variations in human behaviour, vehicle types and road conditions. 

To resolve this problem, we decided to evaluate the severity according to the expected distribution of outcomes. The figures in Table 2 show the expected range of severities for all motorway casualties. It is reasonable to suppose that many of the most common motorway hazards will produce outcomes with similar ratios, whilst some will be more inclined to produce fatalities and others will be more inclined to produce damage-only accidents. We therefore adopted a three-step scoring scheme for severity, as shown in Table 4. 

Most of the statistics published on road accidents in Great Britain are obtained from the national database of road accidents, commonly referred to as STATS19. This database, which is compiled from police accident reports, includes figures for fatalities, critical injuries and slight injuries. It does not include damage-only accidents. The underlying cause of the accident is also entered into the database, but much of this detail is not available through the published results. Whilst this data is useful, it does not help in the estimation of completely new hazards and does not map well onto the breakdown of hazards that facilitates a comparison between the ATM and baseline motorways. 

On March 23,2005, at a BP Products North America-owned and -operated refinery, a fire and explosion resulted in 15 deaths, 170 injuries, and extensive property damage. An investigation team led by BP employee J. Mogford released a report titled Fatal Accident Investigation Report, Isomerization Unit Explosion Final Report, Texas City, Texas, USA. The 192 page report may be accessed at the website listed in the end-of-chapter references. 

There are other heads of damages including loss of expectation of life and in particular the statutory entitlement of dependants of the deceased person under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. 

Under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 damages for loss of financial support can be claimed by or for the defendants. The definition of defendant is set out in the Act as amended by the Administration of Justice Act 1982 and includes spouse or former spouse, ascendants and descendants as well as adopted children and anyone living with the deceased as spouse, the latter subject to certain conditions. 

A report published by a group of international experts mentions that in the dty of Oslo, 15% of all accidents happened on snow and ice-covered roads, though they carried only 5-10% of aU traffic, but the relative number of fatal accidents was found to be lower there was more material damage and less personal injury (OECD, 1976). Further, several studies report a reduction in both motorized and pedestrian traffic under rainy conditions (Rutherford and Schofer, 1976 Palutikof, 1991). Similarly, in Britain, thick fog has been found to reduce traffic volumes to about 70% of normal on weekdays and to about 50% on weekends (Musk, 1991). On an expressway in France, heavy rain was found to cause drivers to increase the time gap between the car ahead and their own, and to reduce the average speed by as much as 36 km/h (Seddiki, 1993). In addition, it was found by the author that on an expressway in Toronto, Canada, overall, drivers respond to rainfall conditions by reducing both speed and speed deviations, and increasing headway. Taken in combination, drivers are taking positive steps in order to either maintain or improve safety levels (Unrau, 2004). 

Reported Cause Number of Accidents % of Total Accidents Barrels Lost Property Damages (k ) % of Total Damages Fatalities Injuries... 

Years Total number of non-fatal accidents Total PSLA ( 000) Total loss of earning ( 000) Total loss of earning capacity ( 000) Total special damages ( 000) Total future treatment ( 000) Total deductions from ECC and victims faults ( 000) Total sum of compensation ( 000)... 

Although the consequences of the high-risk accident sequences may vary from one PSA to another, all PSAs attempt to evaluate realistically, the consequences of hypothetical accident sequences. Expending on the scope of the PSA, these evaluations may include an estimation of the number of latent cancers, the number of immediate fatalities, the probability of core damage, or a number of other consequence measures. 

Property damage and loss of production must also be considered in loss prevention. These losses can be substantial. Accidents of this type are much more common than fatalities. This is demonstrated in the accident pyramid shown in Figure 1-3. The numbers provided are only approximate. The exact numbers vary by industry, location, and time. No Damage accidents are frequently called near misses and provide a good opportunity for companies to determine that a problem exists and to correct it before a more serious accident occurs. It is frequently said that the cause of an accident is visible the day before it occurs. Inspections, safety reviews and careful evaluation of near misses will identify hazardous conditions that can be corrected before real accidents occur. 

On July 24,1994, an explosion followed by a number of fires occurred at 13 23 at the Texaco refinery in Milford Haven, Wales, England. Prior to this explosion, around 9 a.m., a severe coastal electrical storm caused plant disturbances that affected the vacuum distillation, alkylation, butamer, and FCC units. The explosion occurred due to a combination of failures in management, equipment, and control systems. Given its calculated TNT equivalent of at least 4 tons, significant portions of the refinery were damaged. That no fatalities occurred is attributed partially to the accident occurring on a Sunday, as well as the fortuitous location of those who were near the explosion. 

The New York Times reports this is one of the deadliest periods for the American petrochemical industry s history "Alarm(ing) company executives, the 12 worst explosions killed 79 people, injured 833, and caused roughly 2 billion in damage". In the U.S.A. over 34,500 industrial chemical accidents were reported during the period of 1988-1992, nearly one every hour. Over 2,000 of these resulted in injuries, evacuations or fatalities. Some 40 percent occurred concentrated in just two percent of the counties of the U.S., primarily in California, Texas and Louisiana, home to most and some of the largest petroleum and chemical facilities in the U.S.A. 

Between 1985 and 1991,1726 natural gas pipeline ruptures andleakages were reported in the United States. These incidents resulted in 634 injuries and 131 fatalities. Third-party damage was the most common cause of these incidents, followed by corrosion. The GAO believes that the corrosion-related incidents can be reduced with the use of smart pigs (46). U.S. DOT 1992 accident statistics showed that 52.5% of U.S. oil spills involving loss of at least 1590 m3 came from pipeline accidents, comparable to the worldwide statistic of 51.5%. The U.S. DOT regulated 344,575 km of liquids pipelines during the 10-yr study period and received reports on 1901 accidents during that time thus the number of failures per year per 1000 miles was 0.888, of which 27% was due to corrosion and 31% to outside forces (48). 

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