Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
rituals and the
that traditionally characterize the chronicles of
these events. This literature, mainly anecdotal, which boasted a huge production
and often had a large number of readers, simply explained the technological
disasters in terms of fate, incorrect use or technical malfunction rather than attempt
to scienti
“
rhetoric of disasters
”
cally analyze the causes that led to the disastrous event.
Born as eminently sociological discipline, the
, for the multiple
valences of its object of study, progressively developed a variety of approaches:
from those that would have deepened analyze the impact of disasters, whether
natural, technological or environmental or those that who would have studied the
dynamics of a disaster (to better identify the most suitable answers) to those that
would instead focus on the study of individual and collective reactions. During
the
“
disastrology
”
rst post-war years began to be studied also the psychological and behavioral
aspects related to disasters, including technological ones. In this respect, these
researches were largely in
rst studies upon social behavior, psy-
chology of the crowds and the reactions of the masses in the face of exceptional
situations and of danger, issued during the two last decades of nineteenth century.
Focused on the collective behavior, the studies issued during these years were
characterized by extremely detailed references on various disasters, and tried to
explain individual and collective reactions to critical events occurred on environ-
mental, social and situational
uenced by the
elds.
14
In this phase, the growing presence of industrial settlements in densely populated
areas had as a consequence many serious accidents. The Great Molasses Flood of
Boston in 1919, for example, was caused by the disastrous effects of the explosion
of a tank containing molasses in a suburb of the city (21 killed and 150 injured). This
incident, as the Triangle factory
'
death) contributed to the adoption of new laws on safety at work. Another serious
accident was the explosion of ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer
occurred at the BASF plant in Oppau, a suburb of Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 1921
(about 600 killed and 2,000 injured). Equally tragic (130 deaths) were the conse-
quences of the Cleveland East Ohio Gas Explosion occurred on October 1944 in a
district of the city.
During this period, besides to the traditional sources of industrial accidents
occurred the more often incidents related to the consequences for the public of
erroneous procedures in production processes. In addition to the recurring cases of
poisoning from industrial food adulterated or contaminated, such as the scandal that
at the turn of the century involved the Chicago meatpacking industry, also occurred
the
re of New York in 1911 (146 young workers
rst episodes of mass poisoning caused by medicines. One of the most serious
cases happened in 1937 in the United States and was caused by the Elixir sulfa-
nilamide, a compound containing diethylene glycol, a highly toxic emulsi
er. It
was the worst incident of mass poisoning of medicine of the twentieth century, and
claimed the lives of over 100 people. This case began in evidence all the limitations
of the previous legislation on medicines, and led in the USA to the adoption of a
14
LaPiere (
1938
).
