What exactly is an “industrial disaster,” the term now being used by some in referring to the blast that occurred in Glorietta mall in Makati last Friday?

In “The Long Road To Recovery: Community Responses To Industrial Disaster,” a book written by James Mitchell and published by the United Nations University, an industrial disaster happens when hazards—defined as “threats to people and life support system caused by mass production of goods and services”—exceed human coping capabilities and the environment’s absorptive capacities.

Mitchell cited malfunctions, failure, and unexpected side-effects of technological systems as the major causes of industrial disasters. He added though that a combination of factors like environment, people, and the specific industrial system in place can also cause industrial disasters.

Mitchell also cited the components of industrial disasters:

• A huge part of the population that is not within the production system is affected.
• There are effects on the health and well-being of human and other creatures and the immediate environment

According to the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Code of Practice in Preventing Major Industrial Accidents, which was published in 1991, the following are the common causes of industrial accidents:

• Component failure—refers to inappropriate designs and malfunctions of devices
• Deviation from normal operating conditions—refers to failures in monitoring parameters (temperature, pressure, mixing ratios, etc.), failures in the manual supply of chemical substance, failure in utilities (insufficient electricity, coolant, steam, inert gases, compressed air, etc.)
• Human and organizational error (operator error, communication error, mix-up of hazardous substance, incorrect repair or maintenance)
• Outside accidental inferences (failure in the transport of hazardous substance, neighboring installations, air traffic, etc.)
• Natural forces (weather disturbances, extreme weather conditions and other natural disasters)
• Acts of mischief or sabotage

If we are going to follow the definitions used by the UNU book and the ILO, three accidents that occurred in the Philippines can be considered an industrial disaster: the Marcopper mining leak in March 1996; the Guimaras oil spill in August last year; and the fish kill caused by cyanide poisoning that was traced to operations of Lafayette Mining in October 2005.

The following are some of the biggest cases of industrial disasters in the world:

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