Historical Analysis of the Types of Accidents in the North American Region

Abstract

Accidents can occur for several reasons in the chemical and petrochemical industries, whether during the transportation of hazardous materials or at industrial facilities. Frequently, the reasons for these accidents are physical effects that can damage the equipment. If equipment is damaged and a fire occurs, it can provoke a domino effect, increasing the severity of the primary event, as mentioned by Mercedes and colleagues (Gómez-Mares et al., 2008), where databases focused on European countries, such as the Major Hazard Incident Data Service (MHIDAS), are used to analyse the types of accidents that occurred due not only to fires, explosions, and gas emissions, but also different equipment malfunctions or the transportation of hazardous materials, with the total number of accidents being recorded. In the present work, an in-depth analysis of the different types of accidents that occurred in the chemical and petrochemical industries between the 90s and recent years in the North American region (i.e., the United States, Mexico, and Canada), has been carried out. The database used for the present research work was the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT Query Tool, 2020). On this platform, different types of accidents, such as those caused naturally, technologically, and by more complex disasters, can be investigated. In the present research article, a total of 340 accidents which occurred over the last 3 decades in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, have been analysed. The total number of accidents per decade for each country was collected and their types, causes, consequences, and number of deaths were analysed. Finally, safety measures have also been suggested through the comparisons obtained for the three countries.