WHAT IS A MANMADE DISASTER ?

It is disaster due to human intent, negligence, or error; or involving a failure of a man-made system.

BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY

December 3, 1984. The worst industrial chemical disaster ever, Bhopal evokes images of panic and thousands of corpses found in the morning after a deadly fog drifted across the city in Madhya Pradesh county, India. Reports claim between 3,000 and 4,000 fatalities in the wake of the leak from the Union Carbide pesticide factory, with around 50,000 people treated for illnesses related to the leak, including blindness and liver and kidney failure. Activists say that 20,000 deaths since the leak can be attributed directly to the chemical accident.

SEVESO
July 10, 1976. A plume of tetra chloride benzoic Para dioxin (TCDD) contaminated vapors is released from a pesticide plant in the town of Seveso, Italy. Some 37,000 people were exposed to the highest levels ever recorded of a dioxin, a class of chemicals believed to be poisonous and carcinogenic even in microdoses. Over 600 people were evacuated and several thousand were treated for dioxin poisoning. Over 80,000 animals were slaughtered to prevent the toxins entering food chains

CHERNOBYL
On April 26th 1986, the Chernobyl Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic had a major meltdown which resulted in the atmospheric release of radioactive material four hundred times more radioactive than Hiroshima. Since the accident there have been countless children with birth defects, a sickening increase of cancer sufferers and many other health issues as well. It is estimated that the disaster could result in nearly 100,000 fatal cancers, and the area wont be safe for any

This was the worst oil spill in world history which wasn't the result of a tanker accident, a pipeline failure, or an offshore drilling catastrophe. It was an act of war. During the Gulf War, Iraqi forces attempted to stop a potential American troop landing by opening the valves at the Sea Island oil terminal in Kuwait and dumping oil from several tankers in the Persian Gulf. The oil the Iraqis released created an oil slick 4 inches thick that covered 4,000 square miles of ocean.

NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally crashed two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. 3,000 died in the attacks.

In what is probably the worst mining disaster of all time, 1,549 miners died in a mine operated in Japanese occupied Manchuria. China has a horrible history of mine safety. . The Japanese also likely are culpable in this accident: the Chinese were treated as subhuman slave labor by Japanese.

PREVENTING HUMAN-CAUSEDDISASTERS
The best disaster response and recovery policy is advance planning, land use, and building codes to prevent a disaster from happening in the first place. Society has the experience and tools at its disposal to prevent many of the devastating impacts disasters have on humans There are many programs currently addressing aspects of disaster prevention. Individuals and communities can increase disaster resiliency by piecing together currently available research and programs. Planning in advance of disasters can assure that they impact fewer people and require fewer resources.