Analysis of past accident triggered by natural events (NaTech)

In the last decades an increasing trend of NaTech accidents (Natural Hazard Triggering Technological Disasters) is affecting industry, possibly leading to major accidents, exacerbated by the occurrence of multiple simultaneous failures, cascading events (domino effects), and the disruption of utilities, safety systems, and lifelines. In this panorama, it becomes vital to collect and analyse data on past industrial accidents caused by natural events, being almost the unique source of information on NaTech scenarios. Indeed, the main objective of the present work is to understand the dynamic of NaTech accidental events, in order to draw lessons aimed at minimizing and preventing their footprint. Firstly, a database collecting 908 accidents that affected chemical and process industries has been created. Secondly, the database has been analysed in order to find out the trend of NaTech accident compared to the one of natural events, the geographical area involved, the triggering natural events, the final scenarios that occurs, the consequences on human and the economic damages. Particular attention has been given to the presence of safety barriers and their effectiveness in case of NaTech scenarios. Depending on the availability of information, some focuses have been made on specific natural events. Lastly, Multiple Correspondence Analysis has been used to evaluate additional specific correlations between the categorical variables present in the database. Through the present technique, the relationship between each natural event and the other characteristic of the accident are clarified, such as final scenarios, macro sectors involved and consequences on human and on assets. Also in this case, the presence and the effectiveness of barriers is evaluated according to the natural events.