Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
transport, to the automobiles and other motor vehicles for transporting people and
goods.
Even excluding war-time disasters and only considering those accidents occur-
red between late nineteenth century and the beginning of the 1900s, the list of
maritime disasters is impressive: from the incident that involved the Princess Alice,
a Thames river paddle steamer which sank after a collision in 1878 (about 700
victims) and the French passenger steamer La Bourgogne that was sunk after a
collision on July 1898 (about 550 victims) to the Danish steamship Norge, sank
near Rockall Island in 1904 (more than 600 victims). But the real annus horribilis
for maritime disasters was 1912. In that year, in fact, occurred not only probably
the most famous naval incident in the history of maritime civil transportation, the
sinking of the Titanic (1,517 deaths), but also the sinking of the Spanish steamship
Pr
ncipe de Asturias (about 500 victims) and the disaster of the Japanese ship
Kirchemaru (1,000 deaths).
10
The list of rail disasters is equally long. Apart from early accidents that involved
the early steam trains (in many cases because of the explosion of boilers), other
disasters were caused by clashes, derailment of trains or the collapse of bridges. To
this list must be added those disasters occurred on subway lines (e.g. the Paris
Metro disaster of 1903, 84 victims).
11
From 1833 to 1918, at least 8,803 deaths are
attributed to railroad crashes, about 35.7 % of total amount of accidents registered
from 1833 to 1975.
All these disasters contributed to place the question of the adoption of safety
standards to prevent further accidents and insure the safety of persons. The pro-
tection of workers and new legislative measures against industrial risks were also
strongly demanded by trade union organizations and left-wing parties. This process
involved both private and public subjects and generated a debate on technical and
insurance matters that had a great in
í
uence on national governments and promoted
the adoption of laws on prevention and safety, thus accentuating the role of the
State in these areas.
The discussions on security and prevention and emergency management sani-
tation related to the production process were relevant aspects of the debate around
the so called
rst public health legislations:
from the British Public Health Act of 1875 to the public health provisions contained
in the legislation adopted by the Italian government of Francesco Crispi in 1888,
which was in turn inspired by French legislation.
Another important indirect consequence of the industrial accidents was the
development of the occupational medicine, that had a growing importance in pre-
vention of occupational diseases starting to investigate on the relations between
some diseases and certain manufacturing processes. For example, the link between
the exposure to asbestos dust and some serious lung affections was emphasized and
“
unhealthy industries
”
that led to the
10
Schlager (
1995
).
11
Schlager (
1994
).
