NATURAL EVENTS AND ACCIDENTS WITH HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

Based on accident case histories extracted from the data bases Mhidas (SRD) and Facts (TNO) an analysis was performed to identify relevant natural events causing accidents involving hazardous materials. A natural event is defined as an event originating from nature which initiates accidents with hazardous materials. In the analysis, the accidents from the two sources were pooled and the analysis concerns a total of 232 accidents, which were analysed with regard to specific natural cause, geographical distribution and time trend. The analysis indicates that between 1% and 5% of accidents in industrial activities have natural events as a causative factor. Further for specific industries certain types of natural events seem to be dominating. The most often reported natural cause of accidents is 'atmospheric phenomena' which account for 80% of the natural events found, lightning being the most common cause. Looking specifically at storage and processing activities lightning accounts for 61% of the accidents initiated by natural events.