Human-made disaster
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Man-made disasters are events having an element of human intent, negligence, error or involving a failure of a system. Human-made disasters are a result of human-made hazards.
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[edit] Crime
[edit] Arson
Arson is the criminal intent of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. The definition of arson was originally limited to setting fire to buildings, but was later expanded to include other objects, such as bridges, vehicles, and private property. Arson is the greatest cause of fires in data repositories. Sometimes, human-induced fires can be accidental: failing machinery such as a kitchen stove is a major cause of accidental fires. [1]
[edit] Civil disorder
Civil disorder is a broad term that is typically used by law enforcement to describe one or more forms of disturbance. Examples of disastrous civil disorder include, but are not necessarily limited to: riots; sabotage; and other forms of crime. Although civil disorder does not necessarily escalate to a disaster in all cases the event may escalate into general chaos. Rioting has many causes, from low minimum wage to racial segregation. There were riots in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California in 1968 and 1992. The 1992 riots which started at the intersections of Florence and Normandee streets started immediately after the Rodney King verdict was announced on live TV. About 50 people died in the 1992 riots.
[edit] Terrorism
Terrorism is a controversial term with multiple definitions. One definition means a violent action targeting civilians exclusively. Another definition is the use or threatened use of violence for the purpose of creating fear in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological goal. Under the second definition, the targets of terrorist acts can be anyone, including civilians, government officials, military personnel, or people serving the interests of governments. In the early 21st century, terrorism has been considered a constant threat to all people of the world, after the worst disaster of its kind struck in 2001 (predominantly known as September 11th, 2001, the date of the attack), in which four airliners were hijacked from American international airports: two were flown by the hijackers into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, causing both to collapse, another was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a final was forced down by passengers' action into a small field in Stonycreek Township outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A total of just under 3,000 people were killed. In 2004, a series of bombings struck several waiting passenger cars in a Madrid, Spain train station, and in 2005 the transportation systems of London were bombed in four synchronized locations (some times know as the 7/7 bombings).
[edit] Engineering failure
[edit] Dam failure
Failure of dams was not infrequent during the Victorian period, such as the Dale Dyke dam failure in Sheffield, England in the 1860s(Great Sheffield Flood). Such Engineering failures were often caused by a lack of good design.
[edit] Power outage
A power outage is an interruption of normal sources of electrical power. Short-term power outages (up to a few hours) are common and have minor adverse effect, since most businesses and health facilities are prepared to deal with them. Extended power outages, however, can disrupt personal and business activities as well as medical and rescue services, leading to business losses and medical emergencies. Extended loss of power also interferes with law enforcement, creating opportunities for crime, including vandalism, looting, arson and violent crime, even leading to civil disorder, as in the New York City blackout of 1977. One other example happened in New York City and in the rest of the Northeast United States in 2003, and this time hampered millions of commuters' routes back and forth to work and home. Thousands were seen jumbled in the city's streets, confused and baffled. Only very rarely do power outages escalate to disaster proportions, however, they often accompany other types of disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, which hampers relief efforts.
[edit] Bridge Collapse
Bridge failures may be caused in several ways, such as under-design Tay Rail Bridge, by corrosion attack such as Silver Bridge and by aerodynamic flutter of the deck (Tacoma Narrows Bridge).
[edit] Fire
Bush fires, forest fires and mine fires are generally started by lightning, but also by human negligence or arson. They can burn thousands of square kilometers. If a fire intensifies enough to produce its own winds and "weather", it will form into a firestorm. A good example of a mine fire is the one near Centralia, Pennsylvania: started in 1962, it ruined the town and continues to burn today. Some of the biggest city-related fires are The Great Chicago Fire, The Peshtigo Fire (both of 1871) and The Great Fire of London in 1666.
[edit] Hazardous materials
[edit] Radiation contamination
When nuclear weapons are detonated or nuclear containment systems are otherwise compromised, airborne radioactive particles Nuclear fallout can scatter and irradiate large areas. Not only is it deadly, but it is also a long-term effect on the next-generation for those who are contaminated. Ionizing radiation is hazardous to living things, and in such a case much of the affected area could be unsafe for human habitation. In the 1940s United States troops dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: as a result, the radiation fallout contaminated the cities' water supplies and food sources, and half of the populations of each city were stricken with disease. The Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus are part of a scenario like this after a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered a meltdown in 1986. To this day, several small towns and the city of Chernobyl remain abandoned and uninhabitable due to fallout. In the 1970s a similar threat scared millions of Americans when a failure occurred at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania, which was fortunately resolved with little contamination resulting.
[edit] CBRNs
A catch-all initialism meaning Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear. The term is used to describe a non-conventional terror threat that, if used by a nation, would be considered use of a weapon of mass destruction. This term is used primarily in the United Kingdom. Planning for the possibility of a CBRN event may be appropriate for certain high-risk or high-value facilities and governments. Examples include the Halabja poison gas attack on the Kurdish purported by Saddam Hussein, the Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo and the preceding test runs in Matsumoto, Japan 100 kilometers outside of Tokyo [2], and Lord Amherts giving smallpox laden blankets to Native Americans[3].
[edit] Transportation
Disasters have afflicted travellers by train, bus, and ship. One of the largest transportation disasters in history, not involving an act of War, is the sinking of the RMS Titanic, due to the collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.
[edit] Aviation
An aviation incident is an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations, passengers or pilots. The category of the vehicle can range from a helicopter, an airliner, or a space shuttle. One of the more devastating events occurred 1977 on the island of Tenerife of the Canary Islands, when miscommunications between and amongst air traffic control and an aircrew caused two fully loaded jets to collide on the runway, killing over 500 passengers. See the list of air disasters.
[edit] Space disasters
Space disasters, either during operations or training, have killed around 20 astronauts and cosmonauts, and a much larger number of ground crew and civilians. These disasters include either malfunctions on the ground, during launch or in orbit with technology, or of natural forces. Not all are space disasters result in human fatalities: unmanned orbiting satellites that drop to the Earth can incinerate and send debris spewing across the sky. One of the worst manned space disasters, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion of 1986, cost all of the lives on board. The shuttle exploded several seconds after taking off from the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Another example is the Space Shuttle Columbia which disintegrated during a landing attempt over Texas in 2003, with a loss of 7 astronauts on board. The debris field extended as far as from eastern New Mexico to Mississippi. An example of a space disaster killing nearby residents occurred on the 15 February 1996, in Sichuan Province, China, when a Long March 3B rocket crashed at takeoff.
[edit] War
War is conflict, between relatively large groups of people, which involves physical force inflicted by the use of weapons. Warfare has destroyed entire cultures, countries, economies and inflicted great suffering on humanity. Other terms for war can include armed conflict, hostilities, and police action. Acts of war are normally excluded from insurance contracts and disaster planning.
