The Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami damaged or destroyed many industrial facilities housing or processing hazardous substances, such as refineries, petrochemical facilities and other types of chemical industry. This showed that also generally well prepared countries are at risk of suffering natural hazard triggered technological (Natech) accidents. An analysis of data collected from open sources and through interviews with authorities was performed to understand the main reasons for the industrial damage and downtime as well as the extent of hazardous-materials releases and the associated impact on society. The analysis of the data set confirmed the findings from other studies with respect to main damage and failure modes, as well as hazardous-materials release paths. In addition, gaps in Natech risk management were identified. Based on the data analysis and interviews lessons learned in support of a more far-reaching Natech risk management are presented.

Impact of the 11 March 2011, Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami on the chemical industry

. The threat of natural hazards impacting chemical facilities and infrastructures with the subsequent release of hazardous substances has been recognised as an emerging risk which is likely to be exacerbated by the ongoing climate change. Within the European FP7 project iNTeg-Risk, efforts are dedicated to address the problem of Natech accidents by trying to understand their underlying causes and by developing methodologies and tools to assess Natech risk. Special attention is thereby given to the risk of chemical accidents triggered by earthquakes, floods and lightning. This work outlines the ongoing efforts in the development of new concepts and tools for Natech hazard and vulnerability ranking, risk assessment, risk-based design, and emergency planning and early warning.

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Industrial accidents triggered by natural hazards: an emerging risk issue

Risk evaluation of oil and natural gas pipelines due to natural hazards using fuzzy fault tree analysis

Quantitative assessment of risk due to NaTech scenarios caused by floods

Release of hazardous substances in flood events: Damage model for horizontal cylindrical vessels

The term Natech refers to natural disasters triggering technological accidents. In fact, because of the interaction between the natural and the industrial risk it is possible that several effects take place in industrial plants and in the storage sites, causing for example damage to pipelines, to process equipment, to storage tanks and consequently the release of hazardous materials. There are different kinds of natural events or, in general terms, of natural causes of industrial accidents (landslides, hurricanes, high winds, tsunamis, lightning, cold/hot temperature, floods, heavy rains etc.), nevertheless in the present study the attention is focused only on seismic and flood events. In fact, several accidents occurred in the last decades in industrial sites evidenced that typology of natural phenomena may cause severe damages to equipment items, resulting in losses of containment, thus in multiple and extended releases of hazardous substances. Because of these multiple and simultaneous failures with release, cascading events are more likely to occur during a natural disaster than during normal plant operation. Some examples of natech events like the flood in the Samir refinery in Mohammedia, Morocco, in 2002 or the Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey in 1999 are available in the scientific literature or in the accident databases . In both cases the natural event occurred in a refinery and involved several storage equipment items and generated fires and explosions. These reports allow to better understand the particular severity of the industrial accidents triggered by flood and seismic events. The reference for the prevention of chemical accident in the European Commission is the Seveso Directive II (96/82/EC). The aim of the Seveso Directive is Prevent Major accidents which involve dangerous substances and to limit their consequences for man and environment with a view to ensuring high levels of protection throughout Community in a consistent and effective manner. (Council Directive 1996) The Seveso Directive is addressed indirectly to Natech risk management; in fact it calls for the analysis of the external events in The identification and accidental risk analysis and prevention methods. The analysis of external events which can lead to chemical accident implies the consideration of the potential threat of natural hazards in the hazard analysis, and carrying out mitigation measures in case an accident occurs. Nevertheless the methodologies and the actions that can be taken to achieve these requirements are not specified and limited work has been devoted to the development of quantitative assessment procedures for Natech risk. How to obtain EU publications Our priced publications are available from EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu), where you can place an order with the sales agent of your choice. The Publications Office has a worldwide network of sales agents. You can obtain their contact details by sending a fax to (352) 29 29-42758. The mission of the JRC is to provide customer-driven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies. As a service of the European Commission, the JRC functions as a reference centre of science and technology for the Union. Close to the policy-making process, it serves the common interest of the Member States, while being independent of special interests, whether private or national.

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Campedel Michela

Papers

Analysis of Major Industrial Accidents Triggered by Natural Events Reported in the Principal Available Chemical Accident Databases