What is accident and disaster
The accident called emergency, accompanied by the destruction of structures and buildings, as well as damage to vehicles and damage to various equipment. The accident caused major damage, destroying property and damaging the lines of communication, leading to the need to immediately eliminate the consequences of the incident to prevent further destruction.
A disaster is called a large-scale emergency incident that happened on the man-made or natural reason, and resulted in extremely adverse consequences. Disasters lead to massive loss of life, environmental disasters, massive destruction of structures and buildings. Usually the consequences are impossible to eliminate without delay, as the scale of the disaster is not allowed to do so.
For the prevention of accidents and disasters are constantly taking preventive measures to protect society and save it from the devastating effects.
The difference between accident and catastrophe
The main difference of accidents from catastrophes is their gravity. Fracture in the accident is relatively small, and the casualties are either absent or few of them. The consequences of the disaster is much bigger – for example, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant quickly turned into a disaster as the spread of radiation literally forced people to leave their city.
If the crash always occur in the local area, the disaster differ global scale.
Accidents often involve the release of hazardous chemical and radioactive substances, as well as failing to provide heat and power. In case of delayed response to potential danger, the accident could turn into a disaster. Unlike accidents, disasters are almost always characterized by numerical casualties and accompanied by the appearance of various damaging factors.
The consequences of the accident lead to localized damage or destruction of the disposable, while disaster impacts negatively affect the environment and ecology. The difference between these two phenomena and to overcome – the elimination of accident consequences is a pretty small amount of time, while overcoming disasters is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, task (e.g., in explosions at nuclear power plants).