Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
interpretations, a direct consequence of this situation. The disaster occurred by a
re
caused by a load of
ammable material placed in an aircraft of the ValuJet airlines,
a discount operator that offered services at very low prices also saving on security
procedures for boarding and maintenance of aircrafts. Trying to solve these prob-
lems, that emerged in many former Soviet bloc countries after the collapse of the
USSR, the international inspection agencies and national and international air
control authorities have responded in various ways: for example, the European
Union, has decided to periodically publish lists of blacklisted airlines, that is unsafe
companies, whose
ights are subject to prohibition of operation in the European
Union.
Among the technological disasters linked to transport could also be included
those that occurred during aerospace missions. Since mid 1970s, with the success of
the lunar missions the space race has suffered a drastic downsizing. Although
reduced in numbers, the missions continued in the following years using different
technologies and spacecrafts. Since the launch by the NASA of the Space Shuttle
program on two occasions, these missions have had a disastrous outcome: in 1986,
when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in
ight because of the malfunction of
a component of Solid-Fuel Rocket Booster, and in 2003, when the Space Shuttle
Columbia disintegrates during return for a breach opened in a wing. In both cases,
crew, consisting of seven astronauts died. Decision-making and risk assessment
procedures adopted by the NASA were severely criticized.
23
The increase in the complexity of technological hazards was the basis for new
approaches to the study and the management of these issues. One of this is the
kindunology, a de
nition introduced in France during the 1980s. This
“
hazard sci-
ence
aims to analyze the natural disasters and those produced by both technological
and economic-
”
nancial factors, by starting with a proper risk assessment and
combining approaches from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.
This new, broader approach to the issue of disaster was also the result of some
incidents, mainly industrial, that took place between the 1970s and 1980s, and that
caused serious environmental contamination by chemicals, with equally dramatic
consequences for health populations.
24
The disaster of the Flixborough chemical plant (28 deaths and 40 serious inju-
ries), an English village near Scunthorpe, which occurred in 1974, was one of the
rst examples of this type of accident. It was however the serious contamination
occurred in 1976 in the small town of Seveso, in northern Italy, and in its sur-
rounding localities to represent a genuine case school. A failure in a reactor of the
ICMESA, a chemical plant of the Swiss Hoffmann La Roche company, of
cially
used for the preparation of basic products for the cosmetics industry, released into
the environment highly polluting substances, including the dioxin. These substances
contaminate an area of over 1,800 ha in the town of Seveso, Meda, Desio, Cesano
Maderno and other centers of the province of Milan. In addition to the serious
23
Vaughan (
1996
).
24
Brickman et al. (
1985
) and Mitchell (
1996
).
