Every year, dozens of terrible man-made disasters occur in the world that cause significant harm to the global environment. Today I invite you to read about several of them in the continuation of the post.
Petrobrice is a Brazilian state-owned oil company. The company's headquarters are located in Rio de Janeiro. In July 2000, a disaster at an oil refinery in Brazil spilled more than a million gallons of oil (about 3,180 tons) into the Iguazu River. For comparison, 50 tons of crude oil recently spilled near a resort island in Thailand.
The resulting stain moved downstream, threatening to poison the drinking water of several cities at once. The liquidators of the accident built several barriers, but they managed to stop the oil only at the fifth one. One part of the oil was collected from the surface of the water, the other went through specially built diversion channels.
The Petrobrice company paid a fine of $56 million to the state budget and $30 million to the state budget.
On September 21, 2001, an explosion occurred at the AZF chemical plant in Toulouse, France, the consequences of which are considered one of the largest man-made disasters. 300 tons of ammonium nitrate (a salt of nitric acid), which were in a finished products warehouse, exploded. According to the official version, the management of the plant is to blame for not ensuring the safe storage of an explosive substance.
The consequences of the disaster were gigantic: 30 people were killed, the total number of injured was more than 3,000, thousands of residential buildings and buildings were destroyed or damaged, including almost 80 schools, 2 universities, 185 kindergartens, 40,000 people were left homeless, more than 130 enterprises have actually ceased their activities. The total amount of damage is 3 billion euros.
On November 13, 2002, off the coast of Spain, the oil tanker Prestige was caught in a strong storm, with more than 77,000 tons of fuel oil in its holds. As a result of the storm, a crack about 50 meters long appeared in the ship's hull. On November 19, the tanker broke in half and sank. As a result of the disaster, 63,000 tons of fuel oil ended up in the sea.
Cleaning the sea and shores of fuel oil cost $12 billion; the full damage caused to the ecosystem is impossible to estimate.
On August 26, 2004, a fuel tanker carrying 32,000 liters of fuel fell from the 100-meter-high Wiehltal bridge near Cologne in western Germany. After the fall, the fuel tanker exploded. The culprit of the accident was a sports car that skidded on a slippery road, which caused the fuel tanker to skid.
This accident is considered one of the most expensive man-made disasters in history - temporary repairs to the bridge cost $40 million, and complete reconstruction cost $318 million.
On March 19, 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 people. The first explosion was followed by four more explosions within 5-7 seconds, which caused extensive collapses in the workings in several places at once. The chief engineer and almost the entire management of the mine were killed. This accident is the largest in Russian coal mining over the past 75 years.
On August 17, 2009, a man-made disaster occurred at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, located on the Yenisei River. This happened during the repair of one of the hydraulic units of the hydroelectric power station. As a result of the accident, the 3rd and 4th water pipelines were destroyed, the wall was destroyed and the turbine room was flooded. 9 out of 10 hydraulic turbines were completely out of order, the hydroelectric power station was stopped.
Due to the accident, the power supply to Siberian regions was disrupted, including limited electricity supply in Tomsk, and outages affected several Siberian aluminum smelters. As a result of the disaster, 75 people were killed and another 13 were injured.
The damage from the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station exceeded 7.3 billion rubles, including environmental damage. Recently, a trial began in Khakassia in the case of a man-made disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station in 2009.
On October 4, 2010, a major environmental disaster occurred in western Hungary. At a large aluminum production plant, an explosion destroyed the dam of a reservoir containing toxic waste - the so-called red mud. About 1.1 million cubic meters of the corrosive substance were flooded by a 3-meter flow in the cities of Kolontar and Dečever, 160 kilometers west of Budapest.
Red mud is a sediment that is formed during the production of aluminum oxide. When it comes into contact with the skin, it acts like an alkali. As a result of the disaster, 10 people died, about 150 received various injuries and burns.
On April 22, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon manned drilling platform sank in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the US state of Louisiana after an explosion that killed 11 people and a 36-hour fire.
The oil leak was stopped only on August 4, 2010. About 5 million barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The platform on which the accident occurred belonged to a Swiss company, and at the time of the man-made disaster the platform was managed by British Petroleum.
On March 11, 2011, in the northeast of Japan at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, after a strong earthquake, the largest accident in the last 25 years after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred. Following tremors with a magnitude of 9.0, a huge tsunami wave came to the coast, which damaged 4 of the 6 reactors of the nuclear power plant and disabled the cooling system, which led to a series of hydrogen explosions and melting of the core.
The total emissions of iodine-131 and cesium-137 after the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant amounted to 900,000 terabecrels, which does not exceed 20% of the emissions after the Chernobyl accident in 1986, which then amounted to 5.2 million terabecquerels.
Experts estimated the total damage from the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant at $74 billion. Complete elimination of the accident, including dismantling the reactors, will take about 40 years.
NPP "Fukushima-1"
On July 11, 2011, an explosion occurred at a naval base near Limassol in Cyprus, which claimed 13 lives and brought the island nation to the brink of economic crisis, destroying the island's largest power plant.
Investigators accused the President of the Republic, Dimitris Christofias, of neglecting the problem of storing ammunition confiscated in 2009 from the Monchegorsk ship on suspicion of arms smuggling to Iran. In fact, the ammunition was stored directly on the ground on the territory of the naval base and detonated due to the high temperature.
Destroyed Mari power plant in Cyprus
At least six people have died due to heavy rains in Haiti
Continuous downpours for several days have led to severe flooding in northeastern Haiti. At least six people became victims of the disaster. Dozens of houses were completely destroyed, many residents lost their entire harvest. In the context of an almost complete lack of urban infrastructure, in particular storm drainage, heavy rains often lead to flooding of entire areas and loss of life in Haiti.
Cold weather kills 143 people in northern India
The northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has been hit by a cold wave. As a result of the cold snap, more than 40 people died during the day, making a total of 143 victims. Dense fog disrupted normal life in the state capital and neighboring areas. Visibility in many areas dropped to 15-20 meters. Dozens of trains have been cancelled. Due to difficult weather conditions in the state, winter holidays for schoolchildren have been extended. Authorities said they are providing warm blankets, clothing and overnight shelters to people in need.
In the state capital of Lucknow, more than 700 stray animals, mostly cows, died due to cold weather.
and dogs.
Heavy rainfall in China kills 21 people
Heavy snowfall in central and eastern China has killed at least
21 people, in total 2 million 375 thousand people were affected by the bad weather. Most deaths occurred
in Anhui province, one person died each in Jiangsu and Henan provinces
and Hubei. Heavy rainfall has passed
in the provinces of Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Hunan and Shaanxi, as well as in the central city of Chongqing. Due to icy roads, numerous accidents occurred and many passengers were stranded on the way. As a result of difficult weather conditions, agricultural crops were damaged and electrical power and hydraulic infrastructure facilities were damaged. More than 3.7 thousand people were evacuated from the affected areas. About 2.8 thousand buildings were damaged, more than 700 residential premises were destroyed.
California: 17 dead in floods and landslides
At least 17 people died due to landslides in Southern California caused by heavy rains
and floods. Some 163 people are in hospital, 20 were injured and four are in critical condition. About 300 people are stranded in Romero Canyon in eastern Santa Barbara. Due to bad weather, approximately 48 km of the coastal highway was blocked. Mudslides in California are causing giant boulders to roll onto roads. Thousands of people were evacuated from the flood zone, and more than 50 rescue operations were carried out. Among those rescued is a 14-year-old girl who was found in the ruins of her own home. Heavy rains triggered mudslides in Montecito, where several homes were blown off their foundations. Boulders the size of small cars came down from the slopes and blocked roads. The US Coast Guard assigned several aircraft to carry out the rescue operation. On Monday, authorities urged several thousand Californians to leave their homes. The city of Burbank imposed a mandatory evacuation after cars were washed away by mud flows. Several roads are closed, including Route 101.
It's 47 degrees in Sydney
Sunday in Australia's largest city turned out to be the hottest day in the last 79 years - the air temperature reached 47.3 degrees. It was hottest in Penrith, just west of Sydney. Around 7,000 homes were without power in NSW, partly due to extreme heat. Lighting a fire in Sydney and its surrounding area is prohibited, since even without abnormal heat, forest fires often start in Australia at this time of year. Several fires have already broken out in the states of Victoria and South Australia, where several houses have burned down. bbc.com
CAR CRASHES
Six people died in a road accident on a highway in Russia
Two cars collided on the highway in the Cherepanovsky district of the Novosibirsk region.
According to preliminary information, the driver, driving a Toyota car, driving along the highway, drove into the oncoming lane, where a collision occurred with a Honda car. The accident occurred on Thursday at 10:30 (06:30 Moscow time) on the 111th km of the R-256 Novosibirsk - Barnaul highway. As a result, six people were killed and three were injured. The victims were hospitalized. Among the victims, one child, an 11-year-old girl, was hospitalized in serious condition. Weather and road conditions in the area of the accident were normal and visibility was not limited. The causes of the accident are being established.
Bus accident in southeast Turkey
Nine Iraqi citizens were killed and 28 injured in an accident with an Iraqi bus in southeastern Turkey. The accident occurred on a section of the highway between the Khabur checkpoint, located on the Turkish-Iraqi border, and the Turkish city of Silopi. Among the dead are three children. For an unknown reason, the driver lost control and the bus overturned. Ambulances arrived at the scene and the victims were taken to hospitals.
A school bus overturns in northern Italy
A school bus overturned on a motorway in the northern Italian province of Mantua, sending 23 children to hospital. The accident occurred on Monday afternoon; about 50 students from a local school were on the bus, returning from classes. The preliminary cause of the incident is said to be the driver's sudden deterioration in health. All victims were taken to hospital by ambulance.
Road accident involving a fuel tanker in the Nizhny Novgorod region
Five people became victims of an accident on the Nizhny Novgorod - Saratov highway in the Pochinkovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod region, where a fuel truck and a VAZ-2114 car collided. The accident occurred around 08:00 Moscow time in the Pochinkovsky district. All the dead were the driver and passengers of the VAZ. The cause of the incident is being established.
MARINE ACCIDENTS
Two ships collided in the East China Sea
A collision between a Hong Kong bulk carrier and an oil tanker from Iran flying the flag of Panama occurred
in the East China Sea last Saturday at about 20:00 local time (15:00 Moscow time) 160 nautical miles from the Yangtze River Delta. The tanker caught fire, an oil spill occurred, and an oil slick was detected around the damaged vessel. All crew members of the Iranian tanker were killed. There were 136 thousand tons of gas condensate on board the Iranian tanker, which caught fire after a collision with a Chinese ship. The fumes make it difficult for rescuers to work. There was also a threat of explosion and sinking of the ship. China's State Maritime Safety Administration has banned ship traffic within a 10 nautical mile radius of the crash site. The cause of the collision between the two vessels is being established.
RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
In Japan, a train with passengers is stuck on the road due to heavy snowfall
A passenger train in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, carrying about
600 passengers stranded on the way due to heavy snowfall. A four-car train traveling from Niigata to Nagaoka became stuck in the Sanjo area. However, the electricity supply was not disrupted, so the lights are on in the cars and the heating is on. Heavy snowfalls that hit western Japan and the coast of the Sea of Japan led to transport disruption in many places. On the island of Shikoku, a passenger train was stopped due to a tree falling on the rails; in the city of Tokushima, cars are stuck in huge traffic jams. Air traffic was also disrupted due to bad weather. Flights at Kumamoto Airport in Kyushu are being canceled due to snow. Niigata Airport completely closed the runway and canceled all flights. Up to 80 cm of precipitation fell in this area in one day.
FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS
Fire in a nursing home in Madrid
Thirteen people, including five police officers, were injured in a fire at a nursing home in the Spanish capital Madrid. According to the publication, 20 people were evacuated due to a fire that started in one of the rooms of the building. Firefighters and police officers arrived at the scene of the fire. Eight people, including an employee of the institution, were taken to hospitals. The injured police were treated at the scene.
Fires in Australia
Fires are burning in the state of Victoria in southern Australia. On Saturday, the fire got too close to the Carrum Downs community in suburban Melbourne. Local residents were evacuated. 300 firefighters and three helicopters fought the disaster. The fires were brought under control. Dry heat has hit Australia in recent days, where it is now the height of summer. The thermometer in some areas rose to 40 degrees Celsius.
Fires in Argentina have engulfed more than a million hectares of steppe
More than a million hectares of grassland have been damaged or destroyed by fires that have raged in the Argentine provinces of La Pampa, Rio Negro and Buenos Aires since December. There are no reports of injuries or deaths as a result of the fires. At the same time, the fire destroyed thousands of hectares of crops and pastures. The fires led to massive deaths of livestock. According to agricultural producers, their losses have already exceeded $15 million. According to local authorities, firefighters managed to bring a significant part of the fires under control, but the situation is complicated by strong winds and dry weather.
ACCIDENT
A rocket stage crashed and exploded near a Chinese village.
China used the Long March 3B launch vehicle to launch satellites for the BeiDou navigation system into orbit. The Long March 3B rocket consists of three stages and four external upper stages. One of the rocket stages fell to Earth. The step fell in a planned area in Baise City, near a populated area.
We see examples of how man-made emergencies interfere with the peaceful course of life literally every day. Disasters sometimes leave indelible scars on the body of our planet. And if the destructive riot of nature is an evolutionary process that leads to natural changes in its structure and to balance, then disasters caused by human activity rudely interfere with the ecosystem. It’s not even worth talking about financial costs when work to eliminate the consequences on the territory takes several years, the most important thing is that as a result of the disaster, natural areas are destroyed, animals die, people die, and these losses cannot be compensated for by anything.
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Disasters: small and large
When talking about examples of natural and man-made emergencies in general, several specific types are usually identified. Depending on the number of victims, the size of the territory and the total damage in the event of emergencies of biological, social and natural and man-made emergencies in Russia and in the world, disasters are classified by scale into:
- local;
- local;
- territorial;
- regional;
- federal;
- cross-border.
Variety of dangers. Characteristics and classification of man-made emergencies
According to general statistics, among all types of emergencies, the largest share is occupied by man-made disasters - 89.5%. What are man-made disasters and accidents? As already mentioned, human activity is to blame for these events. As a result of the occurrence of a certain source of emergency, an unfavorable situation is created at a facility or any territory and a threat arises to the life and health of people, the environment, and damage to the national economy and property is caused. Sources arise at potentially hazardous objects (PHO), technical systems that have energy, which, if released, turns into a damaging factor.
Potentially dangerous objects can be divided into six groups:
- biologically hazardous objects and complex technical systems, in the event of an accident, flora and fauna may be affected;
- chemically hazardous facilities and complex technical systems that produce, store and process chemicals;
- radiation hazardous objects and complex technical systems. Among man-made emergencies, accidents at such facilities occupy a special place: they are the most extensive in terms of area affected and make the territories dangerous for living for many years. An example of this is Chernobyl;
- hydrodynamic objects and complex technical systems;
- fire and explosion hazardous objects and complex technical systems;
- life support facilities and transport communications. The failure of a public utility facility entails a significant deterioration in the living conditions of the population and can lead to an environmental disaster.
Accidents at facilities occur due to negligence of personnel or a malfunctioning system; sometimes a small flaw in the design of a facility leads to the death of hundreds of people. Man-made major emergencies are a broad concept that includes such accidents as:
- associated with all types of transport, for example, railway, road, air, water, metro;
- with the release of hazardous substances;
- hydrodynamic, associated with the breakthrough of dams and sluices;
- explosions and fires;
- accidents on utility and energy networks;
- Emergency situations at wastewater treatment plants;
- sudden collapse of buildings.
Why is this happening?
Since the late seventies, the number of man-made disasters around the world has increased sharply, and Russia is no exception. Despite the fact that, for example, in the Nizhny Novgorod region in 2017, emergencies began to occur half as often, this trend does not persist in all regions. The level of risk for the population to suffer from a man-made emergency in Russia over the past decades has become higher than in developed countries. This is due to the decline in industrial development and economic degradation.
Examples of causes of man-made emergencies include:
- human factor;
- Exceeding the standard service life of equipment at the facility;
- extreme climatic conditions;
- low qualifications of enterprise personnel;
- electrical equipment malfunction;
- non-compliance of objects and territories with safety standards;
- violation of production technology;
- imperfection of the regulatory framework.
On average, every year there are about 150 man-made emergencies in Russia, in which hundreds of people die. For example, according to the statistical table of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in Russia in 2016, 708 people died in 177 incidents and 3,970 were injured. It is worth noting that about 60% of Russians live near critical and potentially dangerous facilities. Today there are 2.5 million hazardous objects in the country, the condition of which is worsening every year. In many cities, the concentration of harmful substances in the atmosphere exceeds the maximum permissible concentration according to regulations. The water quality of most water bodies does not meet regulatory requirements. To the factors contributing to the occurrence of man-made emergencies, it is worth adding neglect of production and technological discipline and basic ignorance of safety precautions by the population. There have been more and more examples of what the above factors lead to in recent years.
General technogenic situation in the regions of the Russian Federation and examples of emergency situations
It is worth remembering not only about the most famous and large-scale man-made emergencies in the history of Russia, such as Chernobyl, but also about those that happened more recently. Let's look at examples of emergencies that happened in different regions Russian Federation in recent years.
Examples of emergencies in Moscow and Moscow Region
Moscow is one of the regions most vulnerable to man-made emergencies in the Russian Federation. In particular, Moscow is home to a huge transport network, a large number of industrial enterprises and scientific research organizations, many of which are hazardous facilities. We can separately highlight the fallen level of industrial discipline in the Moscow region, the lack of an effective system for protecting the population, and a local detection and warning system.
Fire in the RUDN University dormitory
November 24, 2003
Deaths: 44
Victims: 180
Reason: employee negligence
The fire broke out at night in an empty room belonging to female students from Nigeria. Several students tried to put out the fire on their own. Firefighters arrived on the scene when the façade of the dormitory was already engulfed in flames. University employees and students jumped from windows, some fell to their death, and many received serious injuries.
Transvaal water park roof collapse
February 14, 2004
Deaths: 28
Victims: more than 100
Reason: design error
In the evening, at 19:15, the glass dome of the roof collapsed on the entire main water part of the entertainment complex, which amounted to about 5 thousand square meters. m. 95 rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations cleared away the rubble throughout the night. The investigation under the article “Causing death by negligence” lasted 20 months, as a result, gross miscalculations in the design of the water park structure were revealed.
Basmanny Market roof collapse
February 23, 2006
Deaths: 68
Victims: 39
Reason: improper operation
The inner circular balcony was overloaded with goods, which caused one of the roof cables to break. Throughout the existence of the market, the building was used incorrectly: the mezzanines were designed for hawker trading.
Example of an emergency in St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg is the second largest city in the Russian Federation and has the same negative man-made factors that exist in the Moscow region. There are about 15 radiation hazardous facilities in St. Petersburg, such as the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, the Russian Scientific Center “Applied Chemistry” and the V. G. Khlopin Radium Institute. However, over the past 5 years or earlier, there have been no examples of large-scale emergencies, which indicates the effectiveness of monitoring emergencies and incidents.
Accident at the Baltic station
November 11, 2002
Deaths: 4
Victims: 9
Reason: poor quality repairs, violation of safety rules by employees
An electric train without control suddenly began to move and flew under the tented part of the station at a speed of 41 km/h. The first two carriages were dragged several meters along the platform directly towards people.
Examples of emergencies in the Perm region
On the territory of the Perm region there are several chemically hazardous facilities, as in the Novosibirsk region, but it is worth noting a decrease in their number due to changes in technological processes at enterprises and the transition to non-hazardous technologies, which contributed to reducing the risk of man-made emergencies in the Perm region. However, in 2017, a radiation spot was discovered in the center of Perm; the radiation level exceeded the norm by 100 times.
Chlorine release in Bereznyaki
A leak at the Soda-Chlorate chemical plant when the hydrogen valve froze on the hydrochloric acid synthesis column. Soon it was possible to localize the release and eliminate the danger to city residents. The enterprise was not equipped with a gas leak monitoring system and an emergency notification system: a typical example of neglect of safety in many private industrial facilities.
Fire at the Lame Horse club in Perm
December 5, 2009
Deaths: 156
Victims: 78
Reason: improper use of pyrotechnics
The fire started during a pyrotechnics show to celebrate the club's eighth anniversary. Sparks fell on the low ceiling, decorated with wicker twigs and canvas. A meter-long layer of polystyrene and foam rubber and plastic wall decoration contributed to the rapid fire. A crush immediately began in the club; evacuation was complicated by the narrow doorway and the abundance of furniture in the cramped room.
An example of an emergency in the Yaroslavl region
In the Yaroslavl region, the number of emergency incidents has been steadily decreasing in recent years. However, the scale of the consequences is steadily growing upward. Experts make disappointing forecasts regarding the road transport situation. Nevertheless, serious work is being carried out in Yaroslavl related to the prevention and elimination of emergencies.
Fire in the industrial zone of Yaroslavl
On the territory of a warehouse in an industrial zone, barrels with fuel and lubricants caught fire due to the fault of a local resident who decided to set fire to garbage nearby. Acrid black smoke spread throughout the city and explosions were heard. As a result of the emergency, three buildings burned down and one person was injured.
An example of an emergency in the Saratov region
There are more than 50 potentially dangerous objects in Saratov, close to which about 30% of residents live. However, accidents at radiation, fire and explosion hazardous facilities, and housing and communal services systems rarely occur. Among the main examples of emergency situations in Saratov are fires in residential, social and cultural buildings and industrial enterprises, as well as transport accidents in the city and suburbs.
Fire on an oil pipeline in the village of Krasnoarmeyskoye
As a result of depressurization of the Transneft main oil pipeline, a fire broke out. The area of the oil fire was 7,500 square meters. m. Residents were evacuated, no one was injured. There was no pollution of the Volga River. Man-made emergencies in the Saratov region also often occur due to the fault of the Togliattiazot enterprise; examples of this are regularly covered in the local press.
An example of an emergency in the Chelyabinsk region
It is included in the list of the most vulnerable subjects of the Russian Federation to man-made accidents. As an example, in 2017 in Chelyabinsk region a thousandfold higher level of ruthenium-106 was discovered.
Bromine leak in Chelyabinsk
At the railway station, glass containers with liquid bromine broke due to the collision of cars during the dissolution of the train. Then the wooden boxes in which the containers were transported were heated and ignited, which led to the boiling of bromine in other containers. Soon, a brown-brown cloud of bromine covered the Leninsky district and Kopeisk, also geographically located in the Chelyabinsk region.
An example of an emergency in the Novosibirsk region
There are 154 potentially dangerous economic objects in the NSO. The cloud of chemical contamination during a man-made emergency in the Novosibirsk region can reach up to 20 km, and about 75 thousand people will be in its zone. The greatest threat is 1148 tons of ammonia and 180 tons of chlorine. Fire and explosion hazards and railway facilities are also sources of man-made hazard inherent in non-technical structures.
Ammonia leak caused by Togliattiazot in the city of Novosibirsk
About 13 tons of ammonia spilled onto the ground as a result of a leak during cargo transportation in the Novosibirsk region. Despite the fact that damage to life and health was avoided local residents, significant environmental damage was caused: over time, the substance will penetrate deep into the soil and contaminate drinking water sources in Novosibirsk. ToAz has been repeatedly found in gross violation of environmental legislation.
An example of an emergency in the Altai Territory
In Altai, an effective system for countering crisis situations and combating man-made threats has been successfully formed, so major emergencies in the Altai Territory occur only sporadically. However, due to weather conditions, road traffic accidents are not uncommon, and due to wear and tear of equipment, the risk of emergency situations at housing and communal services facilities remains.
Power line accident in Barnaul
As a result of the accident at the facility, there was a power outage in several areas of the city. 109 thousand people were left without electricity, as well as 48 kindergartens, 32 schools and 6 hospitals. Similar examples of utility failures in the Altai Territory can be seen quite often due to the climate.
An example of an emergency in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug
The Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug is characterized by a dangerous technogenic situation, in particular due to unfavorable climatic conditions: for example, extremely low temperatures down to -50, squally winds, forest fires, etc. Transport breaks down, flights are delayed due to weather conditions . In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug there are 28 chemically hazardous objects, if destroyed, contamination on a scale of 1847 square meters could occur. m. Also, 15 production facilities that use explosives and flammable substances operate without a license. This region is characterized by frequent natural and man-made emergencies.
Leakage of 170 tons of petroleum products at the Rosneft enterprise
A leak of petroleum products was discovered on the territory of the oil depot of Nizhnevartovsk Oil Refining Association LLC. The liquid was contained within a tank dike, the problem was quickly corrected at the site, and there was no threat to the environment, according to a department official. Despite this, the damage caused to the soil was estimated at 50 million rubles.
How it was. Examples of major tragedies
The most famous major man-made emergencies and accidents in Russia over the past few decades:
1. Disaster at Baikonur on October 24, 1960
The R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile exploded as a result of an unauthorized engine start. 74 people died in the fire.
2. Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986
As a result of testing a new emergency power supply system, a reactor exploded at the enterprise, releasing numerous radioactive substances into the atmosphere. A 30-kilometer exclusion zone was created around the nuclear power plant;
3. The Kursk tragedy of August 12, 2000
A nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea during a naval exercise due to an explosion in its torpedo tube. All 118 crew members were killed;
4. Accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station on August 17, 2009
Hydraulic unit No. 2 could not withstand the hydrodynamic loads, and water poured into the turbine room. As a result, all ten hydraulic units failed, killing 75 people.
5. The death of the Tu-154 aircraft near Irkutsk on July 4, 2001
During landing, the plane unexpectedly turned 180 degrees, after which it crashed onto a field and burned out. All 145 people on board were killed.
6. Explosions at the Raspadskaya mine on May 8-9, 2010
An example of the world's largest coal mine tragedy. The explosions destroyed the above-ground buildings of the mine and almost all the workings. 91 people died.
7. The death of the motor ship "Bulgaria" on the Volga on July 10, 2011
Due to the overload of the ship and the open portholes, into which water filled when turning, a list occurred and the ship sank. 122 people died.
The path to safety. What do we have to do?
The regions cannot develop sustainably at the existing level of risk: direct losses in recent years have reached 10% of GDP. It is necessary to restore the destroyed industrial safety management system, switch to new safe technologies, and establish a warning system and ensure public safety. For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, a project to create shelters in new buildings is already being discussed, and in 2017, tests of System-112 of a single number for calling emergency services in the event of any incident or man-made emergency in the Rostov region took place.
A set of measures to prevent man-made emergencies includes timely replacement of outdated equipment, placement of man-made zones themselves at a safe distance from residential areas, ensuring fire safety, medical and radiation protection and other preventive measures. And the more effort is put into organizing such events, the fewer man-made disasters await us in the future.
It is also worth tightening the requirements for technological and production discipline at facilities, because often the cause of incidents is the human factor. The same is said in the above examples of disasters. More than one human life may depend on the knowledge and ability to correctly assess the situation, act, and prevent emergency situations at the right time. And this should always be remembered.
SafetyAbout 2,300 high-risk facilities are operated in Russia. Accidents and disasters on them occur on average once every 10-15 years with damage of more than 2 million dollars, once every 8-12 months with damage up to 1 million dollars and once every 15-45 days with damage up to 100 thousand dollars .
The main objects that account for the majority of emergencies are radiation, chemical, fire and explosion hazardous objects.
There are 11 nuclear power plants in operation in the Russian Federation, with 34 reactors with a total capacity of 18,213 MW. Another 6 nuclear power plants are under construction. More than 1 million people live in the 30-kilometer zone around operating nuclear power plants alone. Due to radiation accidents that occurred in different years in Kyshtym at the NPO Mayak and in Chernobyl in Russia, to date, the total area of radioactive contamination zones within the external boundaries of strict control zones reaches 32 thousand sq. km.
Another source of danger is the chemical industry. In the Russian Federation there are more than 1,900 chemically hazardous facilities, located mainly in nine regions (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Bashkir, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, Kemerovo and Angarsk) with a population in the danger zones of about 39 million people. The most dangerous chemical situation is in Moscow, Volgograd, Dzerzhinsk, Irkutsk, Samara, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Perm, Ufa and Chelyabinsk). Every year, approximately 1,500 uncategorized accidents involving the release of explosive and hazardous products involving fires, explosions, and releases occur in the chemical industries.
The Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline with a length of 1,252 km runs through the territory of 5 regions (Samara, Saratov, Tombov, Voronezh and Belgorod), which simultaneously holds 125 thousand tons of a potent toxic substance - ammonia
Oil and gas fields, as well as pipelines, pose a great potential danger on the territory of the country: Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod, Urengoy-Pokrovsk-Novomoskovsk, Saratov-Novgorod, etc. The total length of gas pipelines is more than 300 thousand km.
Russian railways continue to be a source of danger, where about 1,000 accidents and incidents are recorded annually during the transportation of dangerous goods.
In total, more than 1,300 emergencies occur annually on the territory of the Russian Federation for man-made reasons, in the largest of which about 1,500 people die, and 25 thousand people are injured to one degree or another. Material damage from these emergencies amounts to more than $1 billion. These losses, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, increase every year by an average of 10%.
In the technogenic sphere, a high level of accidents remains, and for certain types of production there is an increase in its growth, including in life support systems and main pipelines. This is due to the growing scale and complexity of production and the accompanying presence of a large number of unfavorable factors:
irrational, from the point of view of technological safety, placement of potentially dangerous objects throughout the country;
low rates of implementation of resource- and energy-saving and other technically advanced and safe technologies;
miscalculations in the technical policy of design, construction, modernization and operation of potentially hazardous facilities;
insufficient development of the country's transport and other communication networks;
significant progressive wear and tear of fixed production assets, reaching 80–100% in a number of industries;
a decrease in the professional level of employees and production discipline; the decline of design and engineering and the quality of work;
increasing the volume of production, transportation, storage, and other use of hazardous (harmful) substances, materials and products;
the absence or low quality of systems for monitoring the situation regarding hazardous factors and warning about it, systems for diagnostics, localization or suppression of emergency situations, and other technological safety systems;
a decrease in the level of safety precautions, a lack of personnel protection equipment; a reduction in the number of security workers and on-site emergency services;
incomplete construction and ineffective functioning of systems for declaration, licensing and insurance of potentially hazardous activities; insufficient coverage of projects of potentially hazardous facilities with expertise.
Another source of constant danger for a large part of the population is natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, mudflows, natural fires, etc. The most common natural hazards in the world are: tropical storms and floods (32% each), earthquakes (12%), droughts - 10%, other natural processes (14% ). Among the continents of the world, the most exposed to hazardous natural processes are:
Asia (38%)
North and South America (26%),
Africa (14%),
Europe (14%)
Oceania (8%).
More than 30 types of hazardous natural phenomena are observed on the territory of Russia 1 . The greatest damage in Russia is caused by various floods.
Territories subject to the influence of selenium flows are Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, as well as Magadan, Sakhalin and Kamchatka regions.
In addition, earthquakes have negative, often catastrophic consequences. Such disasters are typical for Russian territory in such seismic regions as the North Caucasus, Transbaikalia, Primorye, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka.
In the Russian Federation, the trend of annual growth in the number of emergencies caused by hazardous natural phenomena, natural disasters, accidents and man-made disasters continues. The damage from these incidents is growing. Sanitary and irretrievable losses of the population remain significant. The natural environment is harmed.
The main reasons for the persistence and worsening of significant natural hazards are:
an increase in anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, provoking or intensifying the negative consequences of hazardous natural phenomena;
changes in some parameters of the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and land;
irrational placement of economic facilities and settlement of people in areas of potential natural danger;
insufficient efficiency, underdevelopment or absence of environmental monitoring systems, weakening of state monitoring systems for volcanic, seismic, exogenous processes, hydrometeorological and heliophysical phenomena;
low reliability of forecasting hazardous natural phenomena, lack of theoretical or practical ability to predict some of them;
absence or poor condition of hydraulic, anti-landslide, anti-mudflow and other protective engineering structures, as well as protective forest plantations;
insufficient volumes and low rates of earthquake-resistant construction, strengthening of buildings and structures in earthquake-prone areas;
curtailment of measures taken to reduce the accumulating threatening potential of certain hazardous natural phenomena (hailstorm prevention, avalanche prevention, etc.);
reduction in the activity of specialized government services to carry out sanitary-epidemiological, veterinary-epizootic and other preventive measures in the field of infectious diseases and the spread of pests;
incompleteness and insufficient detailing of the zoning of the country's territory according to natural hazard criteria, the absence or insufficiency of inventories of potentially dangerous areas (regularly flooded, particularly seismic, mudflow, avalanche, landslide, karst, tsunami, etc.).
The risk of man-made disasters and the magnitude of economic and social damage from any emergency situations increase:
as the number of potentially dangerous objects in the country increases;
lack of funds from the state and the population itself to prevent accidents;
insufficient development of infrastructure to ensure timely implementation of rescue measures;
low professionalism of specialists and insufficient coordination of agencies responsible for security.
The problem of preventing and eliminating natural and man-made emergencies remains very relevant.
Figure 1. Forecast of natural and man-made emergencies in the Russian Federation for 2012
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia notes increased risks in 2012 strong earthquakes magnitude over 7.5 on Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the Kamchatka Territory, which can cause a tsunami up to 8 meters high, is predicted in the spring of 2012 difficult flood situation on the territory of the Siberian and Volga Federal Districts due to low water levels in the rivers.
Course “BJD: Protection in Emergency and Civil Defense” - 2006 13
"Main characteristics and classification of emergency situations."
The situation with emergency situations in the world, Russia and Moscow.
The high industrial development of modern society, while providing solutions to economic problems, simultaneously gives rise to negative phenomena associated with production accidents and its environmental hazards. The number of major industrial accidents with severe consequences is growing, the environmental situation is worsening, and dangerous natural phenomena and natural disasters continue to cause great damage.
The situation arising under the influence of such phenomena in the totality of exceptional circumstances is often characterized as an emergency situation (ES).
Forecasting, preventing and eliminating the consequences of emergencies are problems whose relevance is increasing every year for the entire world society.
Over the past 20 years, natural and man-made disasters have killed about 3 million, affected more than 800 million people, and left more than a billion homeless. And it is no coincidence that a special resolution of the UN General Assembly declared the 90s the International Decade for Disaster Risk Reduction.
The increase in the negative consequences of emergencies, observed throughout the world, also occurs in our country, which is facilitated by many reasons.
About 2,300 high-risk facilities are operated in Russia. Accidents and disasters on them occur on average once every 10-15 years with damage of more than 2 million dollars, once every 8-12 months with damage up to 1 million dollars and once every 15-45 days with damage up to 100 thousand dollars .
The main objects that account for the majority of emergencies are radiation, chemical, fire and explosion hazardous objects.
The country operates 11 nuclear power plants with 34 reactors with a total capacity of 18,213 MW. Another 6 nuclear power plants are under construction. More than 1 million people live in the 30-kilometer zone around operating nuclear power plants alone. Due to radiation accidents that occurred in different years in Kyshtym at the NPO Mayak and in Chernobyl in Russia, to date, the total area of radioactive contamination zones within the external boundaries of strict control zones reaches 32 thousand sq. km.
Another source of danger is the chemical industry. In the Russian Federation there are more than 1,900 chemically hazardous facilities, located mainly in nine regions (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Bashkir, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, Kemerovo and Angarsk) with a population in the danger zones of about 39 million people. The most dangerous chemical situation is in Moscow, Volgograd, Dzerzhinsk, Irkutsk, Samara, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Perm, Ufa and Chelyabinsk). Every year, approximately 1,500 uncategorized accidents involving the release of explosive and hazardous products involving fires, explosions, and releases occur in the chemical industries.
Oil and gas fields, as well as pipelines, pose a great potential danger on the territory of the country: Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod, Urengoy-Pokrovsk-Novomoskovsk, Saratov-Novgorod, etc. The total length of gas pipelines is more than 300 thousand km.
The Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline with a length of 1,252 km runs through the territory of 5 regions (Samara, Saratov, Tombov, Voronezh and Belgorod), which simultaneously holds 125 thousand tons of a highly toxic substance - ammonia.
Russian railways continue to be a source of danger, where about 1,000 accidents and incidents are recorded annually during the transportation of dangerous goods.
In total, more than 1,300 emergencies occur annually on the territory of the Russian Federation due to man-made causes, in the largest of which about 1,500 people die, and 25 thousand people are injured to one degree or another. Material damage from these emergencies amounts to more than $1 billion. These losses, according to the Russian Academy of Sciences, increase every year by an average of 10%.
It should be noted that the risk of an emergency in a large industrial region, such as Moscow, is also very high. In Moscow there are hundreds of facilities for the production, storage and use of various hazardous chemicals, fire and explosive enterprises, nuclear reactors and facilities with biologically hazardous substances. It is especially alarming that the majority of potentially dangerous objects are located in close proximity to residential buildings, educational institutions, health care and other crowded places.
In Moscow there are about 150 chemically hazardous facilities with a total stock of hazardous chemicals of 4.5 thousand tons. Of these, 72 use more than 2,600 tons of ammonia per year, and about 60 enterprises consume 15 thousand tons of chlorine per year. Calculations show that in the event of an accident in the cold supply system at a typical regional vegetable warehouse containing 150 tons of ammonia, there is a risk of poisoning of people located at a distance of up to 5.5 km from the accident site, and in the event of large emissions from one storage tank at a water supply station, total losses The population in Moscow can range from 40 to 70 thousand people.
25 Moscow railways pose an additional danger. stations, which annually receive up to 1000 cars with hazardous substances.
In total, about 4 million people live or work in areas of possible chemical contamination.
Another source of danger in Moscow is 64 highly fire-hazardous and 25 explosive objects. These include the Moscow Oil Refinery, liquefied gas cluster bases, automobile gas-filling compressor stations, high-pressure gas pipelines, etc.
For example, modeling the consequences of an accident at the Pushkin gas distribution station, where 540 tons of liquefied gas and 2000 gas cylinders are stored, showed that in the event of a gas cloud explosion, a continuous damage zone with a radius of 1.5 km will appear, and the radius of the cylinders will be 8 km and the cities of Korolev, Pushkino and Ivanteevka may be affected.
The 11 research nuclear reactors operating in the city also pose a great potential danger, the destruction of which could lead to consequences comparable to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
These, of course, are only forecasts, albeit scientifically based ones. However, statistics maintained by the Moscow Department of Civil Defense and Emergency Situations show that every year in the capital there are about two dozen major accidents (half of them involving the release of hazardous chemicals) and several thousand fires, in which hundreds of people die and more than a thousand are injured and defeats. Analysis of these statistics shows that the scale of losses among the population and material damage from the consequences of emergencies tend to increase.
Another source of constant danger for a large part of the population are natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, mudflows, natural fires, etc.
The greatest damage in Russia is caused by various floods. Territories subject to the influence of selenium flows are Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, as well as Magadan, Sakhalin and Kamchatka regions.
In addition, earthquakes have negative, often catastrophic consequences. Such disasters are typical for Russian territory in such seismic regions as the North Caucasus, Transbaikalia, Primorye, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka.
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