What is the difference between a catastrophe and an accident: determining the scale of a disaster

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Humanity regularly faces dangers that threaten with unpredictable consequences. If emergencies cannot be avoided, they are assigned the status of a catastrophe or an accident. What is the difference between a disaster and an accident? Is there any difference between them at all?

Differences

First of all, we note that both accidents and disasters are emergencies.

Emergency situation is the occurrence in a certain territory, water area or object of a state in which normal life and activities of people are impossible, when there is a threat to their he alth, property, economy or natural environment is damaged.

This is where the similarities of concepts end, so we will understand in detail how a disaster differs from an accident.

The first difference is the scale. Accidents cover a small area, while catastrophes are global in nature.

The next difference is in dynamics. Catastrophes are often characterized by the presence of a damaging factor, that is, the event occurs "increasingly", accidents more often occur without it, at the same time.

One more differenceaccidents and catastrophes are consequences. Of course, both emergencies bring trouble and destruction. But the consequences of the accident are much less tragic: there are no victims, the local territory is affected, and irreparable damage to material values is caused. The consequences of disasters are more extensive, because they are accompanied by the death of a large number of people and a negative impact on the environment on a global scale.

And, finally, the last thing that distinguishes a disaster from an accident is the elimination of consequences. The liquidation of the accident takes a relatively short period of time, it begins immediately, in order to avoid further destruction. Eliminating the consequences of a disaster is much more difficult, often impossible to do at all.

Concepts

To make the differences even more obvious, here are the concepts.

Accident is:

• unexpected breakdown or damage to a structure (machine) during operation;
• an incident of a man-made nature at a certain facility or local area that poses a threat to people's lives or their he alth, which can lead to damage to property, destruction of buildings, causing damage to the environment;
• breakdown of technical equipment used in hazardous production, leading to explosions or emissions of hazardous substances.

A catastrophe is an accident or natural disaster with tragic consequences. These include events, as a result of which:

• the death toll is at least 100;
• number of injured at least400;
• number of evacuees at least 35,000;
• at least 70,000 left without drinking water.

As you can see, an accident, the consequences of which were not eliminated in a timely manner, can turn into a disaster.

Types of disasters

Terrible incidents occur for various reasons. Depending on them, the following types of disasters are distinguished:

• Natural. These include the strongest tornadoes, storms, earthquakes, drought, forest fires, etc.
• Man-made. For example, major transport accidents, air crashes, industrial accidents associated with the leakage of radioactive or chemical substances, dam breaks, etc.
• Civil unrest, terrorist attacks, armed conflicts.
• Diseases. These include epidemics (widespread of infectious diseases among humans), epizootics (infection with an infectious disease of one or more animal species in a specific area), epiphytoties (a widespread plant disease that has an infectious nature).

The following types are distinguished according to the volume of destruction and the possibilities of attracting resources to eliminate the consequences of disasters:

• on a local scale, when the consequences of an incident can be solved with the help of the resources of the administrative territory of one local government where the unfortunate event happened;
• on a regional scale, when the volume of destruction exceeds the territory of one local government and the resources of the affected local governments and public funds are sufficient toaftermath;
• national scale - when destruction covers the territory of an entire state or several states, and the funds of these states are not enough to eliminate the consequences.

Humanity is still mourning the victims of the worst disasters in history, which claimed the lives of many people.

Collision

The worst plane crash happened not in the air, no matter how strange it may sound. On March 27, 1977, two Boeings of different airlines collided on the island of Tenerife (Canaries). An unfortunate set of circumstances led to the tragedy: airport congestion, poor visibility, radio interference, the dispatcher's strong Spanish accent and misinterpretation of commands. The commander of one of the "Boeings" did not understand the dispatcher's command to interrupt the takeoff, and the board flew into another plane taking off at a terrible speed. As a result, 583 passengers on both planes died.

Death of the Unsinkable

The biggest disaster on the water was not the death of the Titanic at all, but the sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. This event took place on January 30, 1945. The military elite of Germany was evacuated from Danzig on a huge, most modern (at that time) liner, which was considered unsinkable. Soviet submariners refuted this fact by breaking through the ship with torpedoes. The liner sank in the waters of the B altic Sea and claimed the lives of 9,000 German soldiers.

Farewell Sea

The most serious environmental disaster is the death of the Aral Sea, which is located on the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The uncontrolled withdrawal of water from the sea led to the greatest tragedy: many species of marine inhabitants died, droughts became more frequent, many people lost their jobs due to the fact that shipping stopped.

Nuclear catastrophe

Explosion at one of the power units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 led to the death and injury of hundreds of people. Chernobyl and Pripyat "thundered" to the whole world, becoming a zone of exclusion. The scale of the disaster is still unknown. Many consider the incident an accident, but those who know how a disaster differs from an accident understand that this is a real man-made disaster on a national scale.

As sad as it is to realize, emergencies will never be avoided. One can only hope that the elimination of consequences will always be carried out in a timely and efficient manner so that accidents do not turn into disasters.