Natural and man made disasters

Definition of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

It is difficult to apply a single universal definition to a disaster, though it is generally described as an event that complies with the following criteria:

According to the cause of the event, disasters are classified as either natural or man-made.

Natural disasters can be defined as an event caused by natural forces that surpasses the coping ability of the community it affects, which is the extreme occurrence of hydrological, geological or meteorological events. Man-made disasters are equally devastating, but unlike natural disasters, it results directly from human activity.

To have enough impact to be classified as a natural disaster, an event needs to comply with the following:

When these factors combine, the magnitude of the effects determines its disastrous implications.

Man-made disasters are so diverse in origin that, to be defined as a man-made disaster, it is merely be classified as:

Causes of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

Usually, a single disaster or hazard result in casualties and damage due to different contributing forces, as in the case of a natural disaster like a cyclone there are strong winds, water surges, rain and so on. Volcanoes on the other hand pose problems due to lava streams, fires, ash falling or release of harmful gases, among many others.

On the other hand, a man-made disaster may be due to human error, negligent behavior, dysfunction of a human-engineered system or intentional instigation and/or attacks. The economic and social impact is substantial and just can be just as catastrophic as a natural disaster.

Examples of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

Floods (cited to be the most common disasters worldwide), hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes are all natural disasters. The physical damages greatly impact the social structure and later the recovery period of a community and losses in various sectors. Hurricane Katrina or tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia provide examples of natural disasters and the extensive impacts thereof.

Disastrous events such as harmful chemical spillage, industrial accidents, detonations, biological or chemical attacks, plane crashes, and so on, are all man-made disaster. The effects of man-made disasters may be amplified by natural processes, for example, the nuclear accidents that occurred in Japan in 2011. This was a result of inadequate storage; the storage planning did not take into account the effects that an earthquake may have and this resulted in a nuclear accident.

Similarities

Prevention of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

Natural disasters cannot be prevented, although there are localities that are more prone to it and pre-emptive measures can be taken to minimize the damage. This is not the case with man-made disasters since it often occurs at unanticipated localities but it can be prevented by careful planning or vigilant monitoring schemes.

No preventative measures can avoid natural disasters since the natural forces that cause them are uncontrollable. Unlike man-made disasters, certain localities that are more prone to natural disasters can be identified and prepared to mitigate the effects as much as possible.

Man-made disasters can be prevented if proper precautionary measures are taken and risk management strategies are vigilantly maintained and monitored. Many of these disasters seem to accompany human development since there has been a marked increase in this category of disaster in the 20 th century, as commented upon by Perrow (1984) and later agreed upon by many authors and researchers:

‘‘As our technology expands, as our wars multiply, and as we invade more and more of nature, we create systems – organizations and the organization of organizations – that increase the risks for the operators, passengers, innocent bystanders, and future generations.”

Effects of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

For both disaster categories, the stronger economic countries are usually better prepared and able to mitigate the damage, but the worst effects are seen in regions with weaker economic and social circumstances. This is due to the fact that there are great measures being taken to prepare for natural disasters as much as possible, for example in areas with high seismic activity, stricter building codes will be adhered to. In the case of man-made disasters, prevention can often avoid the damage it causes. The effective preventative schemes and monitoring are better maintained in communities with less other social pressures, for example, poverty-stricken communities often prioritize other problems before it.

The rate at which a natural disaster occurs, the total duration and cues prior to the event are also critical determinants of the amount of damage it can cause. Human activity may be a contributing factor to the intensity of a natural disaster, for example, erosion caused by land misuse might intensify the effects of drought. The extent of damage caused by a man-made disaster is directly correlated to the magnitude of the event, the locality in which it occurs, and the speed and efficiency of emergency measures that are taken to deal with it.

Natural Vs. Man-made disasters: Comparison Chart

Summary of Natural Vs. Man-made disasters

Both categories of disasters wreak havoc and cause immense losses, economic and social. Natural disasters are inevitable since natural forces cannot be controlled, but emergency measures can be put in place to minimize the effects. Man-made disasters, however, can be prevented and avoided with proper planning and precautionary measures. The area these disasters hit will also determine the extent of the damage since better-developed regions often have more effective emergency measures in place. The locality affected by a natural disaster

The Top 20 Biggest Man-Made Disasters

A collection of the biggest disasters we caused to the Earth.

1. The Bhopal Gas Leak

In 1984, a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resealed 30 metric tons of methyl isocyanite into the atmosphere. The Union Carbide India Limited chemical plant was in extremely poor condition and had broken dozens of safety regulations years before the accident. However, the errors accumulated in time and on the night of December the third, a safety release system activated and emptied a storage tank in the air, in order to prevent a huge chemical explosion. The release spread highly toxic chemicals over Bhopal and the neighbouring areas. Official death count by the Indian government is 3,787 bodies, however, unofficial records state 8,000 deaths or more tied to the disaster.

2. The Jilin Chemical Explosion

In November the thirteenth, 2005, a petrochemical plant in Jilin, China was the site of series of explosions. Poor handling of the operating systems led to blasts which shattered windows up to 200 metres away. Six people died, dozens were injured and thousands were forced to evacuate the region.

The event released 100 tons of pollutants, mainly benzene and nitrobenzene, into the environment. Surprisingly enough, the accident went seemingly victimless as viewed in scale. However, Songhua River and Amur River were covered in 80 km of toxic sludge. The benzene level rose to 108 times the safety levels. Exposure to it lowers the amount of blood cells in the body and can cause leukaemia and other immune system impairments.

Later the Jilin and Heilongjian Province water supplies were shut off, due to the contamination. Tens of millions of people were stranded without the vital supply. The initial death count might have been small, but surely, a lot more people died in result of the explosions.

3. The Tennesse Coal Ash Spill

The Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant like any other of it’s kind produced fly coal ash as a by product of the coal combustion. The methods of storing required the ash to be mixed with water and the mixture stored in dredge cells. However, due to poor management, the mixture was stored in dangerously high amounts on the slope of a hill. After a powerful rain storm, in 2008, the slurry gave weight and stormed down the hill in a massive landslide of mud and ash. In the southern states, people love to play in mud slides, however, one would guess this one was a bit over the top. Three hundred acres of land were buried under the filth and a lot of properties in Kingston were destroyed. An estimate of 675 million dollars of damage was caused to the residents and national land with another 975 million needed to clean up the slurry. Six months after, only three percent is removed.

4. The Sidoarjo mud volcano

Typically mud volcanoes are results from seismic activity. However, man couldn’t stand the fact somebody else, be it mother nature, do something he could not. So, we caused one of our own.

PT Lapindo Brantas was an Indonesian drilling company. Although being warned multiple times, the company pushed forward with an excavation site in a know unstable area not far away from the ring of fire. Apparently, the drilling reactivated previously inactive faults. This was complimented by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake to the south-west and several big aftershocks. A few days later, the drill hole erupted mud 200 metres above itself in result. It continues to this day, with the expectancy to continue for the next 25 to 30 years. At it’s peak the mud volcano spewed 180, 000 cubic metres of mud into the ocean.

Despite mud is not directly toxic, it’s not edible or drinkable either. The amounts released continue to contaminated the surrounding waters and affects thousands of near by inhabitants and wildlife.

5. The North Pacific Garbage Patch

A gyre is a marine phenomenon, caused by the relationship of neighbouring currents. Essentially, it’s a vortex of trapped water which spins around a centre point. It has no access to the neighbouring currents, so transfer of particles is not possible.

In 1988, scientists predicted the garbage thrown off in the ocean will ultimately converge in one of these gyres and create a huge patch of waste floating in circles forever. Well, it happened. Estimates vary between 700 thousand and 15 millions square kilometres of garbage. Roughly 0.4 to 8.1 percent of the entire surface of the Pacific Ocean is covered in a mixture of toxic sludge, plastic, petrol and other thrown away waste. No wonder sharks don’t like us. Hell, I’d bite off the leg of anyone who comes into my home and empties their garbage can inside.

6. The Gulf War Spill

As a direct result of human idiocy, 720 thousand cubic metres were spilled into the Persian Gulf during the war. Apparently, Iraq found it a brilliant military strategy to drown the waters in petrol, just to make it hard for US forces to land.

This brilliant defence manoeuvre changed the surrounding wildlife for good. The amounts was just too much to clean up and well, Iraq didn’t really try hard to fix what they broke. The oil is now settled in the very sediment layers of the water bed. All marine wildlife suffered a great deal of damage, as some local species even disappeared. The environment still recovers after 21 years and still has a long way to go. Mother nature is one tough cookie.

7. The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Considered the worst oil spill in history, on April, the twentieth, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the sea. This left the drill hole completely open and petrol began to blow out directly into the waters, much like a gun wound in the chest. It ultimately discharged 780,000 cubic metres of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, while claimed seven lives. The US managed to cap it 87 days later, as it was even considered to use nuclear blasts to seal the well. I guess a huge oil leak was not enough press material, as naturally they wanted to make the evening news cast.

The spill threatened 8,332 marine species, some of which, already endangered and under federal protection. In the following years and on-going, scientists continue to pile up reports of the catastrophic effects. From mutated fish to closed beaches from washed petrol ashore, more and more damage just keeps surfacing. The oil is now soaked up in the environment and food and water resources. It’s described as the biggest health crisis in the US.

8. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

If you haven’t already guessed, humanity has evolved out of the ability to learn from it’s mistakes. The Exxon Valdez oil tanker was on a course for Long Beach, California in 1989, before it struck the shore around midnight local time. The reason was a tired and insufficient crew which led to one of the world’s biggest contamination disasters for all times. An estimate of 119 thousand cubic metres of crude oil were spilled over several days, before the US government could react to the situation. In the end, 2,100 kilometres of coastline and 28 thousand square kilometres of ocean were coated in thick layer of oil.

No wonder the US is always hungry for more, they just keep spilling it in the ocean.

9. The Guiyu E-Waste Dump In China

The Americans, although completely deserving, are not the only ones to blame for the current state of the Earth.

The Guiyu dump in China is the biggest e-waste landfill in the world. A total of 52 square kilometres of land is buried in iPhones, Galaxy S4s and other famous electronic devices. Even though of e-waste can’t possibly compare in size with world garbage, it contains the intimidating amount of 70% of all heavy metals in the landfills. In time, they leak out of the appliances and guess what, end up in the land, air and water. Pretty much all of the surrounding area and especially the rice supplies are exposed to lead poisoning. Guiyu’s children have a 54 percent higher lead levels in their blood than those of the nearby town Chendian.

On top of that, the methods of disposal and reprocessing are highly outdated. Some include literally burning the piles of electronics to retrieve precious metals, which furthermore pollutes the area. Soil samples from a Guiyu workshop show 371 times more lead and 115 times more copper in comparison to samples taken 30 kilometres away.

The environmental impact from electronic waste is one of the largest growing problems in the world as of now. Consider that next time you drop your batteries in the general trash can.

10. The Baia Mare Water Cyanide Contamination

The gold mining company Aurul is a venture by the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government. One of the processes, used to extract the precious metal from the ore is gold cyanidation. What’s left after the process finishes is cyanide-contaminated water.

The company claimed they can take care of their junk and shipped it to a dam near Bonitza Mare. However, whether to poor management, incapability or lack of monitoring, the dam wall ruptured on January the thirtieth, 2000. A total of 100 thousand cubic metres is toxic water, in which resided 100 tons of cyanide spilled over the near by farmlands and made it’s way into the Somes river. From there, it travelled across many European rivers and ultimately ended up in Danube river.

The spill killed 80% of all life in the Serbian section of the Tisza. Sixty two species or fish, twenty of which are under protection, were threatened, as large quantities died by the poisoned water. In Hungary the water supply of two and a half million people were destroyed.

The cyanide contamination is the second biggest pollution in Europe after the Chernobyl event.

11. Chernobyl

Many of you, the readers, know of the Chernobyl melt-down. As we proved we have not learned with the Fukushima crisis, there is a desperate need to remind the world as often as possible what danger nuclear power hides if not monitored.

Chernobyl used to be a nuclear power plant near Pripryat, Ukraine. In 1986, an explosion, caused by poor management, cracked open one of the plant’s nuclear reactors and leaked large quantities of radio active particles into the atmosphere. The winds spread the radioactive cloud all over USSR and Europe. It was classified as level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

The only other accident to receive the maximum rank is the Fukushima event. Way to go, catching up Japan!

Even though the reactor was sealed as quickly as humanly possible, the entire area around the plant, including the near by town Pripryat was highly contaminated. The residents were evacuated immediately, however, long therm effects of the exposure still appear to this day. In the accident itself died 31 people, but each year hundreds of birth malformation and radiation-related illnesses add to the death toll.

The town is now nothing more that a dead, ghostly monument to remind us of our mistakes.

12. London’s Great Smog

The winter of ‘52 was a cold one for Londoners. At the time, people heated their homes with mainly coal powered heaters. Naturally, the consumption increased to battle the chills. It wouldn’t have been a problem if there wasn’t an anticyclone right on top of the city which collected the burned pollutants and smoke, and formed a thick layer of smog over the entire city. It lasted for four days and due to nature of the city nobody paid attention. However, the smog was highly toxic and hit the lungs of pretty much every inhabitant. Later in the year, when medical reports were analysed, it was found that four thousand people have died prematurely and a hundred thousand more developed dreadful respiratory illnesses. I guess ignorance is not always blessed.

13. The Minamata Disease

The Minamata disease was discovered in the mid twentieth century in Minamata Bay, Japan, hence the name. It’s a neurological degradation, caused by organic mercury poisoning. Not a big discovery really, we’ve known of the toxic effects of mercury for a long time. However, the situation that demanded the extended research is far more interesting and horrific. The residents near Minamata Bay and especially the fishermen and their families exhibited a bizarre neurological impairment.

At first it was suspected a contagion was loose in the area. Naturally, the diseased were isolated and their homes purified. This led to wide discrimination of those who showed signs of the illness. When medical specialists and universities showed interest in the events, it was discovered the sick had a mortality rate of 36.7 percent — a truly dreadful figure. This attracted international attention and large scale researches began.

Ultimately, it was found the waters in Minamata Bay, it’s fish and everybody in contact had a period of 34 years of exposure to lead, mercury, manganese, arsenic, thallium and copper — all highly toxic heavy metals. Turns out, the near by chemical factory, owned by the Chisso corporation, was dumping it’s contaminated waste water directly into the bay.

The corporation officially certified 2,265 victims most of which already dead in March, 2001. Another 10 thousand have received financial recompense. However, the total death toll is probably much higher. Good thing they have certificates now to show for their suffering.

14. The Libby Montana Asbestos Contamination

Libby, Montana is a small town that only prospered thanks to the W.R Grace plant which operated the vermiculite mines. However, at the time (starting 1919), people knew little about the effects of asbestos on the respiratory system. The toxic material was one of the by-products of the mines and plant operations. As a result, it was constantly pumped out of the industrial chimneys and continued to cover the town until 1990, when the mine was closed. Even though, by that time, asbestos had pretty much soaked into the very existence of the residence. Along the particles transmitted by the smoke, excess materials were used as fill for driveways, gardens and playgrounds. Even the school track was made from tailings provided by the plant.

The pollution accounts for 200 deaths and thousands of illnesses throughout the inhabitants. Now, the entire area is announced as contaminated and warning signs are put all over to avert people from further health danger.

15. The Love Canal Toxic Landfill

The Love Canal is a neighbourhood in Niagara Falls, New York. At the time of landscaping the area, the land belonged to Hooker Chemical, which used it to bury their toxic waste. However, an economic boom called for drastic expansion of the area. Niagara Falls had to quickly acquire more land to build a school. At start, Hooker Chemical refused to sell, due to health precautions. Ultimately, however, they were persuaded and the neighbourhood was build right on top of the buried toxic trash. Because there is no more effective way to learn chemistry, than right on top of a chemical landfill. The pollution, of course, affected the residents almost immediately. Birth defects, anomalies and strange illnesses began to emerge. However, no sooner than 1978 was the issue made public by US reporters. And yet, even that didn’t attract the attention of the respected authority.

In 1995, district judge John Curtin finally ruled in favour of the residents and matters were settled. The school was brought down and clean up began.

16. The Centralia Fire

Centralia is a borough, now almost completely abandoned, in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. It’s story goes way back in the times of native Americans, however, it will always will be remembered for the event in 1962. Every year the administrative Council hired men to clean up the local landfill. In 1962, five firemen were took the job. A common method is to set the dump on fire, let it burn for some time and later extinguish.

Now, fighting fires is what firemen are usually good at, right? Well, not in this case they’re not. Centralia had a coal mine, which was abandoned for some years. Abandoned is typically good to set fire in, a mine and furthermore coal, however, is not. The firemen stuck the piles of trash in the mine and set it a blaze. Here is where stories start to heavily differentiate, but the most popular one is they never completely extinguished the fire. So, it spread throughout the mine, fuelled by the leftover coal inside. Eventually, it spread underground, below Centralia and Byrnesville.

At the start, as always, the issue was ignored. It was only after a sinkhole collapsed and sucked a child underground, that state officials turned their eyes onto the problem. Right now the two towns are almost completely abandoned, with very few residents, who just refuse to leave their homes, regardless of the dangers.

17. The Door To Hell

The Door To Hell is a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan, which to this day forth still continues to burn, after it was set on fire in 1971. Soviet scientists began to drill and excavate the resource in the same year. However, during their work the ground under the drilling rig gave weight and collapsed. A giant crater formed and started to blow out methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, right into the atmosphere. Out of fear of further pollution, the workers did the next best thing — lit it on fire. When the gas is burned, almost all environmental hazards are removed.

Whether that was the reason, or a secret passion to surpass the Centralia event, I leave to you. The scientists had the expectancy the fire would burn for a few days and then die. However, four decades later, it still does, fed by the underground deposits. Which you know, considering the fuel crisis warnings, could have been useful.

18. The Death Of Aral Sea

The Aral Sea can be considered as a sacrificial lamb to the former Soviet Union’s agricultural plans. In 1960, it was the world’s fourth in size. However, in the same year, USSR officials decided to divert the route of the two rivers which fed into the lake. Massive irrigation channels went under construction. The plan was to eventually feed the rivers back into the lake, but also make them pass through the desert, where crops were to be planted. The union wanted to become the biggest exporter of cotton. And the biggest they were in 1988. However, that first place cost them the fate of the lake.

The channels were very poorly build which is to be expected of the time. The cold war demanded speed and quantity, rather than quality. The diversion channels were so inefficient, in some places up to 75 percent of water was lost to the land, rather then fed in the lake.

In result, the lake began to evaporate. In 2004, it’s surface area was only 25 percent of the original size.

Uzbekistan cares for the land as much as it did for the water. The agricultural plan was made to achieve results and nothing more. Naturally, the land was exhausted and large quantities of pesticides and fertilizers were used to keep up the production. The run off from the fields washed all the toxic chemicals into the already shrank sea. Those, combined with the salinity, which resulted from the evaporation, continue to heavily pollute the surrounding area and inhabitants to this day. Sand storms pick up the poisonous particles and shower the area with toxic dust. The residents of the area live a highly polluted life. Birth defects, death of newborns and pregnant women, illnesses and lack of water are just the start of an endless list of suffering. All for mother Russia, I guess.

19. The Palomares Incident

In 1966, an American B-52 bomber, loaded with four hydrogen bombs, crashed into a KC-135 tanked, while they refuelled mid-air over Spain. Miscommunication was the main cause. The nuclear weaponry was released in the crash. Out of the four, three bombs landed in the area near Palomares — a fishing village in Spain. Two of them had discharged their non-nuclear explosives. A two square kilometre zone was contaminated with plutonium…and democracy. The third and fourth ones were recovered from the land and sea, respectively, generally intact. Although, somehow, human losses were averted, it was only due to pure luck that we hadn’t seen a new Nagasaki. Had this happened, the world could have been gone by the time you read these lines.

20. Castle Bravo

This was the code name given to the biggest nuclear bomb ever discharged by American hand. The blast had a force of 15 megaton of freedom, a thousand times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Apparently, the designers of the bomb made a little miscalculation and it ended up three times more powerful than expected. It’s the largest nuclear explosion in the US. Only Russia has ever discharged more powerful bombs. But, of course, no Russian will ever settle to have his…confidence smaller than the American.

It happened on the first of march 1954 in the Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. The explosion spread fallout over 20 thousand people who inhabited the near by islands. The residents of Rongelap and Utrik Atolls were never even alerted about the test and spend three full days of fallout exposure, before the American government evacuated them. Three years later, they were returned to their homes, only to be told their land is contaminated and they can’t stay. A Japanese boat came in direct contact with the radiation and grew ill. One of them died and caused an international uproar. The world still remembers the previous contact between Japan and US nuclear weaponry. This was the country’s second close call to a new and possibly nuclear, world war. One would start to wonder whether Americans are not really trying to stir something up.

Written and edited by Audrey Wright. As information is collected from the Internet and furthermore, there are multiple versions to most stories, some statistics or facts can vary from the truth.

P.S. The Author needs to eat food at some point, so if you live in London and plan to move any time soon..or at all, check out the link below.

Move out Mates is the one stop company to solving all your moving and tenancy cleaning needs in London. Do you need end of tenancy cleaning in London? Drop by our website and give us a chance to tell you why we’re the best!

Difference Between Natural and Man Made Disaster

Main Difference – Natural vs Man Made Disaster

Disaster is a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction. Disasters can be classified into two basic categories based on their cause. Natural disasters and man made disasters are these two basic categories. Natural disasters are the disasters caused by natural forces whereas man made disasters are caused by activities of human beings. This is the main difference between natural and man made disaster. However, both these types of disasters can have a major impact on the society.

What is a Natural Disaster

A natural disaster is a disaster caused by nature, and men have no control over them. Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, volcanic eruptions are some examples of natural disasters. Such disasters cause massive loss of life, property, and many other miseries. Let’s look at some of these examples in more details to have a better idea about the damages caused by natural disasters.

Floods are one of the most common natural disasters that occur in many regions of the world every year. Flood can be defined as a rising and overflowing of a body of water onto normally dry land. Heavy rainfall in a short duration of time can result in a flood. Although the loss of lives in a flood may be not as high as a tsunami or earthquake, floods result in many long term problems. Damage to human properties (houses, roads, bridges, power lines, etc.), shortage of food and drinking water, destruction of forests and animals, the spread of diseases, soil erosion are some effects of floods.

Drought is the opposite of flood. It is a long period of time during which there is very little or no rain. Sacristy of water, extensive crop damage, lack of food and drinking water, soil degradation and erosion, death of animals and conditions like malnutrition are some effects of drought.

Although natural disasters are caused by nature, not by humans, the activities of humans can have an influence on them. For instance, actions of men like cutting down trees and destroying the sources of water in an area can lead to droughts and wildfire.

What is a Man Made Disaster

A man made disaster is a disaster caused by human beings. Some examples of man made disasters include hazardous material spills, explosions, chemical or biological attacks, nuclear blasts, traffic collisions such as train accidents, plane crashes, etc. Most of these disasters are in the form accidents (except attacks) and cause deaths, injuries, and loss of property.

The great Smog of London (1952) is another example of a man made disaster. This smog resulted in a period of cold weather combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions; the main cause for this disaster was severe air-pollution. This caused about 4000 thousand deaths and other respiratory problems.

Just as natural disasters are influenced by human activities, man made disasters too can be influenced by nature. For example, the massive earthquake and tsunami (natural disaster) in Japan in 2011 also caused nuclear accidents.

Difference Between Natural and Man Made Disaster

Cause

Natural Disaster: Natural disasters are caused by natural forces.

Man Made Disaster: Man Made Disasters are caused by the activities of men.

Examples

Natural Disaster: Some examples of natural disasters include tsunamis, floods, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, volcanic eruptions, etc.

Man Made Disaster: Some examples of man made disasters include hazardous material spills, explosions, chemical or biological attacks, etc.

Control

Natural Disaster: Steps can be taken to minimize the effects of natural disasters.

Man Made Disaster: Man made disasters can be avoided with careful planning and prevention methods.

“Studenka train accident” By Jiří Karlík from Studénka, Czech Republic – EC Komenius nr.108, engine nr.18, (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Commons Wikimedia

About the Author: Hasa

Hasa has a BA degree in English, French and Translation studies. She is currently reading for a Masters degree in English. Her areas of interests include literature, language, linguistics and also food.

Man-Made Disasters

The difference between natural and man-made disasters is the element of human intent or negligence that leads to human suffering and environmental damage; many mirror natural disasters, yet man has a direct hand in their occurrence.

These are the net result of inadequately managed man-made hazards and they typically cost the most in terms of human suffering, loss of life and long-term damage to a country’s economy and productive capacity.

One of the most disconcerting and difficult to forget is the Deep Water Horizon (BP) Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Not only did 11 men lose their lives, but the ecosystem in that area was devastated. Part of the reason it is hard to get over is due to the deception surrounding the event. Initially, the story was told that only a few thousand barrels of oil were seeping out of the well each day, when in fact there were tens, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil gushing into the waters off of Mexico. Years later, the damage still exists and people are still suffering.

If you want to learn more about explosions, go here: Explosions

Another man-made disaster that should be of more concern to everyone, but doesn’t get much attention is an EMP. Fox News had an article about it in January 2014 and stated that, «An electro-magnetic pulse attack could destroy America’s defenses, leaving the U.S. in a technology world equivalent to the 1800s. We wouldn’t even be able to figure out who attacked us.» Most Americans aren’t even aware of what an EMP is, so if you don’t and want to become more aware, please read this page: EMP

Below are links to facts about some more common man-made disasters.

And, scroll down to watch the video:
«Most Bizarre Man Made Disasters»
You will be surprised by these!

10 of the world’s biggest man-made disasters

By Mike Jennings published 18 January 22

Some of the biggest, most significant, and most harmful man-made disasters in human history.

Human history is riddled with man-made disasters, from nuclear meltdowns and underwater oil spills to chemical explosions and mine collapses. We find out exactly what happened in some infamous cases – and how humanity played a pivotal role in these events.

The Aberfan Colliery Slip

Big man-made disasters don’t often happen in Britain, which made the Aberfan colliery slip even more shocking. The Welsh Valleys village of Aberfan grew up around the nearby coal mine that was established back in 1869. By 1966, the settlement had grown, and the village was surrounded by seven huge spoil piles – waste material from mining.

The Seveso disaster

On that daya chain reaction ruptured the reactor — and that, in turn, caused six tonnes of toxic chemicals to burst into the sky.

The cloud settled over 6 square miles (18 square kilometers) of the surrounding area, including the town of Seveso, according to the journal Environment international. Children were hospitalized with skin inflammations, hundreds of residents suffered from skin conditions, and huge areas of land were evacuated. Thousands of animals died or had to be slaughtered to prevent toxins entering the food chain.

The Seveso disaster has had a long-term impact, too. Since 1976, studies have found that more local residents died from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and certain types of cancer increased in frequency in the affected areas.

Chernobyl meltdown

The explosion at Chernobyl is one of the world’s most infamous man-made disasters — and with good reason. It started innocently enough, with engineers performing a routine experiment that was supposed to find out if the plant’s emergency water cooling would work during a power outage.

The test had been carried out previously, but on this occasion, there was a power surge and engineers couldn’t shut down Chernobyl’s nuclear reactors. Steam built up in one reactor, the roof was blown off, the nuclear core was exposed, and radioactive material was released into the atmosphere.

Workers and firefighters were hospitalised and 28 people quickly passed away from acute radiation exposure. It took nearly two weeks, and military intervention, to extinguish the fires.

Crucially, it took more than a day for the 50,000 residents of nearby Pripyat to be evacuated. Following this, the government established a 19-mile (30km) «exclusion zone» and built a containment dome over the top of the site.

In the years following the incident, studies estimate that thousands of people have succumbed to cancer because of the radiation. It’s one of the most expensive disasters in history, too, and it’s estimated that containment and clean-up efforts will continue until 2065.

Montana asbestos clouds

The story of Libby, Montana, began when settlers arrived in the 1800s and the town expanded thanks to mine and railroad construction. In 1919the discovery of a mineral called Vermiculite changed Libby’s fate.

Vermiculite has loads of uses, from gardening to car parts, and the mine in Libby was producing 80% of the world’s supply by 1963. That’s great and lucrative, but some kinds of vermiculite contain asbestos, an exceptionally dangerous substance that can cause a huge range of lung issues.

The vermiculite in Libby, Montana, did contain asbestos, and the mining company knew about its dangerous side effects. But they didn’t tell anyone, and people in Libby used the mine’s waste products for building and landscaping, including in school projects and ice rinks.

By then it was too late. Hundreds of people have passed away from asbestos-related health issues, thousands more have experienced illness, and new deaths and diseases were still being reported as late as 2018 due to the long-term effects of these poisonous substances.

The Risks of Asbestos

Deadly asbestos fibres can cause serious health problems for decades – including these five issues.

The US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (opens in new tab) investigated more than 8,000 properties in Libby and had to decontaminate more than 3,000 different sites where asbestos was used in construction. More than one million cubic yards of material was replaced over the course of the clean-up project, and more than half a billion dollars was spent to decontaminate the town.

Contaminated material is now stored safely at the site of the former mine, and the project has only begun to slow down in the past couple of years – no wonder, as it’s been the biggest asbestos clean-up project in US history.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Oil spills are among the most visible man-made disasters of our times, and 2010’s Deepwater Horizon incident is reputed to be the largest marine oil spill in history.

The explosion quickly engulfed the entire drilling platform, killing eleven workers, and ninety-four crew members were evacuated. Two days later, the rig had sunk.

By that point, though, a vast oil slick had emerged from the underwater well and had begun to spread at the site. BP, the company that had contracted the Deepwater Horizon ship for exploratory drilling, tried to halt the leak with remote-controlled underwater vehicles, a 137-ton (125 metric tonnes) containment dome and by drilling a secondary well, but the oil flowed for 87 days.

It’s estimated that 210 million gallons (around 954 million liters) of oil were leaked from the underwater well and that the spill directly affected 70,000 square miles (around 181, 000 square kilometers)of ocean in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mopping Up the Spill

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an unprecedented disaster. How do you clean it up?

Eventually, the oil was contained and either dispersed or cleaned up using several different methods and thousands of volunteers. By then, though, the environmental impact was being felt on a global scale: the Deepwater Horizon spill killed millions of animals, and the incident affected wildlife and ecosystems across several US states and beyond.

The Bhopal disaster

That’s a huge amount of toxic material, and the plant was surrounded by densely-packed housing – so more than 600,000 people were exposed to the deadly cloud.

The people living around the plant were not informed quickly, and hospital staff were given conflicting information about the situation. Innocent people suffered from coughing, eye irritation, burns, breathlessness and vomiting, and thousands of people died within hours, as Live Science has previously reported. Thousands of animals passed away, too.

Longer-term studies since the accident have confirmed that many thousands of people are still affected by eye, lung, and psychological damage – and, even today, it’s hard to say exactly how many people have suffered.

The Sidoarjo mud volcano

Most people think of lava flowing from a volcano, but in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, you’ll find the world’s biggest mud volcano. It was created by an explosion at a gas well drilled by an energy company, although company officials claim that an earthquake around 155 miles (250km) away provoked the problem.

There are more than 1,000 mud volcanoes around the world, but this Indonesian example is probably the only one caused by human activity, according to the journal Mud Volcanoes, Geodynamics and Seismicity (opens in new tab) It all started on May 28 2006, when a borehole was drilled to nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). This caused water, steam, and gas to erupt from the ground nearby, and by the next day water, steam and mud began to emerge again – and it’s been there ever since. It’s officially called Lumpur Lapindo, and is commonly called the Lusi volcano.

Birth of a Volcano

How the outflow of mud was triggered.

The North Pacific Garbage Patch

There aren’t many man-made disasters that are as large or as visible as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There’s nothing particularly complicated about what’s gone on here: a huge amount of rubbish has made its way into the ocean over the past decades because of negligent humans.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t just made up of crisp packets and drinks bottles. Most of the plastic in the patch has broken down into tiny pieces that simply make the water look cloudy, and ecologists estimate that 70% of ocean debris sinks to the bottom of the sea — so there could be far more below the surface.

The patch’s size varies: estimates range that it sits between around 270,000 and 5.8 million square miles (700,000 and 15,000,000km2) depending on sea movement. Some of the items in the patch are over 50 years old, because plastics just aren’t biodegradable. Scientists reckon that it’s becoming ten times bigger with every passing decade, despite attempts to tackle the problem, according to CBS News.

Unsurprisingly, the patch has a terrible effect on wildlife. Marine animals can get caught in bits of plastic or in abandoned fishing nets, which can quickly lead to death. Animals can die when they mistake plastic items for food.

The patch also has a huge and harmful impact on the ocean’s ecosystems and food chains, because plastic on the surface of the water can block sunlight from algae and plankton and pollutants can leak from different types of plastics.

Californian wildfires

Climate change has seen wildfires become a far more common threat around the world, and 2018 saw huge areas of California affected by some of the worst fires in recent memory,. More than 100 people died in more than 8,500 fires across California, and the fires destroyed more than 24,000 buildings and burned two million acres of land.

Most of the fires in California took place in July and August, and the government declared a national disaster.

There’s no doubt that the fires were a man-made disaster. The years that preceded the fires saw an increase in temperatures due to climate change, and that killed plenty of trees in California — and those dead, dry trees provide ample fuel for fires to spread.

Scientists predict that this kind of disaster is only going to become more common because of climate change, so California’s extreme weather may soon feel normal. Sadly, it has significant health effects on people too.

The Jilin chemical plant explosion

Supplies were cut off for several days while the water supplies were cleaned up, and water had to be transported from unaffected cities to help people cope. Some cities dug deep-water wells to ensure that they won’t be totally dependent on rivers for their water supplies.

Toxins from the original explosions didn’t just affect Chinese water supplies, either. Chemicals were detected in Russian cities and in the Sea of Japan.

Additional resources

Mike is a freelance technology journalist and consultant who is fascinated with gaming, futuristic technology and motorsport. Previously, Mike has worked as a writer for PC Pro magazine writing and published articles on technology for many other media outlets, including TechRadar, Wired, PC Advisor, Stuff, The Inquirer and Red Bull Gaming.