Humanity is regularly confronted with dangers threatening unpredictable consequences. If emergency incidents cannot be avoided, they are assigned the status of disaster or accident. What is the difference between disaster and accident? And is there any difference between them?
Differences
First of all, we note that both accidents and catastrophes are emergency situations.
An emergency is the occurrence in a certain territory, water area or facility of a condition in which normal life and activity of people is impossible, when there is a threat to their health, property, economy or the environment is damaged.
The similarities of concepts end there, so we will examine in detail how the catastrophe differs from the accident.
The first difference is the scale. Accidents capture a small territory, while disasters are global in nature.
The next difference is in dynamics. Disasters are often characterized by the presence of a damaging factor, that is, the event occurs "on the rise", accidents more often occur without it, simultaneously.
Another difference between an accident and a catastrophe is the consequences. Of course, both emergencies bring troubles and destruction. But the consequences of the accident are much less tragic: there are no victims, the local territory is affected, and damage to property is caused. The consequences of disasters are more widespread, because they are accompanied by the death of a large number of people and the negative impact on the environment on a global scale.
And finally, the last difference between a catastrophe and an accident is the elimination of consequences. The liquidation of an accident takes a relatively short period of time, it begins immediately, in order to avoid further damage. It is much more difficult to eliminate the consequences of a disaster, and often this is completely impossible to do.
The concepts
To make the differences even more obvious, we introduce the concepts.
An accident is:
- unexpected breakdown or damage to the structure (machine) during operation;
- an accident of a man-caused character at a certain object or local territory, creating a threat to people's lives or their health, which can lead to property damage, destruction of buildings, and damage to the environment;
- breakdown of technical equipment used in hazardous production, leading to explosions or emissions of hazardous substances.
A catastrophe is an accident or natural disaster with tragic consequences. These include events as a result of which:
- the death toll not less than 100;
- the number of wounded is not less than 400;
- the number of evacuated people is not less than 35, 000;
- at least 70, 000 left without drinking water.
As you can see, an accident, the consequences of which were not timely eliminated, can turn into a catastrophe.
Types of disasters
Terrible incidents occur for various reasons. Depending on them, the following types of disasters are distinguished:
- Natural. These include the strongest tornadoes, storms, earthquakes, drought, forest fires, etc.
- Technogenic. For example, major traffic accidents, plane crashes, industrial accidents related to the leakage of radioactive or chemical substances, dam breaks, etc.
- Public unrest, terrorist attacks, armed conflicts.
- The disease. This includes epidemics (widespread infectious diseases among humans), epizootics (infection of an infectious disease of one or more animal species in a particular territory), epiphytotics (a widespread plant disease of an infectious nature).
The following types are distinguished by the volume of destruction and the possibilities of attracting resources to eliminate the consequences of disasters:
- local scale, when the consequences of the incident can be resolved using the resources of the administrative territory of one self-government, on which a sad event occurred;
- regional scale, when the volume of destruction exceeds the territory of one local government and the resources of the affected local governments and state funds are enough to eliminate the consequences;
- state scale - when the destruction covers the territory of an entire state or several states, and to eliminate the consequences of the funds of these states is not enough.
Humanity is still grieving over the victims of the most terrible catastrophes in history, which claimed the lives of many people.
Clash
The worst plane crash did not occur in the air, no matter how strange it may sound. March 27, 1977 on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands), a clash of two Boeings of different airlines. A sad set of circumstances led to the tragedy: airport congestion, poor visibility, interference in radio communications, a strong Spanish accent of the dispatcher, and his misinterpretation of commands. The commander of one of the Boeings did not understand the command of the dispatcher to interrupt take-off, and the board flew at a terrible speed into another take-off plane. As a result, 583 passengers of both aircraft died.
Death of the unsinkable
The biggest disaster on the water was not the death of the Titanic at all, but the sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. This event occurred on January 30, 1945. The military elite of Germany was evacuated from Danzig on the huge most modern (at that time) airliner, which was considered unsinkable. Soviet submariners denied this fact, breaking the ship with torpedoes. The liner sank in the waters of the Baltic Sea and claimed the lives of 9 thousand German soldiers.
Goodbye sea
The death of the Aral Sea, which is located on the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, is considered the most serious environmental disaster. Uncontrolled withdrawal of water from the sea led to the greatest tragedy: many species of marine inhabitants died, droughts became more frequent, many people lost their jobs because shipping stopped.
