TYPES & CAUSES OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS

Emergency situation for a facility and its operations may be described as a hazardous situation which requires action to control, correct and return the site to a safe condition and also requires timely action to protect people, property and the environment from harm.

 Examples of types of emergencies are:

    - fire (including generation of toxic combustion products)

   - explosion (including BLEVE)

   - spill (of hazardous solids & liquids)

   - gas leak (flammable, toxic, asphyxiant, pressurized or refrigerated liquid)

   - structural failure

   - natural event (including earth quake, storms, tides etc)

   - Products impact events (road vehicles, railways, aircraft, ships ), eg: release of gases/hazardous

substances due to impact/collision of vehicles on the storage facility or during transport of such substances

   - subversive activities (bomb threat, vandalism, sabotage)

TYPES OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS

► Industrial disasters are disasters caused by chemical mechanical, civil, electrical or other processes failures due to an accident, negligence or in competence in an industrial plant which may spill over to the areas outside the plant or within causing damage to life property & environment

► Chemical Disasters are occurrence of emission, fire or explosion involving one or more hazardous chemicals in the course of industrial activity (handling) storage or transportation or due to the natural events leading to serious effects inside or outside the installation likely to cause loss of life & property including adverse effect on the environment

► A chemical accident or emergency refers to an event which r results in the release of a substance hazardous to human health and /or the environment, i.e. short term or long term. These events can cause illness, injury, disability or death to human beings, often in large numbers & can result in the extensive damage to the environment with considerable human & economic costs

CAUSES OF AN INDUSTRIAL EMERGENCY

► Accidents in storage facilities handling large and various quantities of chemicals

► Disaster/explosion in a plant handling or producing toxic substances

► Accidents during transportation of chemicals from one site to another

► Improper waste management such as uncontrolled dumping of toxic chemicals, failure in waste management systems or accident sin waste water treatment plants

► Technological system failures

► Failures of plant safety design or plant components

► Natural hazards

► Human error