Disaster Analysis Report On Tianjin China Explosion Of 13 August 2015

Risks involving safety and environmental aspects

The primary purpose of this report is to analyse the risks after the major accident occurred in China in 2015. This report will be focussing on the key issues related to the accident and its significant impact on a global basis. All the risks associated with the engineering activities including the safety and environmental aspects are given prime importance in this document. The risk management tools used for proposing and analysing the risk scenarios are discussed in this paper along with the different risk management techniques. Critical analysis of the risk management tools is described in details in this paper (Alderson, Brown & Carlyle, 2015). Critical analysis of the risk perception and risk communication plan are conducted so that future accidents can be minimized to a significant extent.

The series of explosion rocked the port of Tianjin in China, a huge amount of harmful material such as sodium cyanide and ammonium nitrate were released from the accident sites (Chiu & Choi, 2016). Even after 3 days of the first blast, situation got worse after more explosion during the recovery stages, almost 180 people working in the corporation lost their lives and the Chinese government imposed a ban on all the social media activities in order to stop people from spread fake information about the situation and create more panic on a global basis (De Boer et al., 2014).

This unit of the document will be focussing on the different types of issues which have a significant impact on the accident occurred in China in 2015. A series of explosions occurred in the at a container storage station at the port of Tianjin (Anderson et al., 2014). There were two explosions at the site and it has numerous environmental and safety issues related with which will be described in details. There are different type’s activities involved in a container storage station such as the risks associated with the use of toxic chemicals, risks involved in maintaining the temperature and pressure, risks associated with the harmful chemicals and radiations which cause several types of health hazards such as irritations and skins diseases (Cimini et al., 2015). The risks involved in this type of accident which occurred in Tianjin China such as the risk of explosion of uncontrolled chemicals due to lack of awareness, cuts and pricks caused by the sharp objects, exposure to hazardous chemicals, different types of human errors such as electric shocks, teratogenic and carcinogenic substances are an important parameter which should be given greater importance so that similar future accidents are minimized.

Lack of performance measures

Regarding the safety and environmental aspect of this explosion, it can be understood that these risks can have a major impact on a human body by affecting specific human organs such as skin, lung and liver (Ayyub, 2014). It can also have a direct impact on the nervous systems and reproductive systems of a human body, these factors should be highly considered while the production is underway in a container storage station in order to avoid such accidents in the future (Aven, 2015). Maintenance of the flammable substances is the most crucial part of this major accident. The environmental health hazard regarding this accident is also considered in this document (Jacobsson, Boldt & Carlsson, 2016).

Lack of performance measures Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	The annual reviews and audits done by the authorities of the storage container company should have been done on a regular basis in order to stop those hazards. A mass evacuation was ordered by the government of China after this accident in the Chinese port and more than 600 workers were hospitalised after the hazard.
Management	The authorities of the storage container organisation should have been more careful about the different types of environmental hazards which are generally caused due to the wastages released from these industries. The environmental aspects of this accident should ta hugely examined so that the future generations can be aware of this issue and take all the mitigation steps to minimize similar tragedies.
Operational Plan	The strategies adopted by the authorities of the storage container company  should be enacted in such a way so that it can help both the operation as well as the environmental aspects.
Storage	The warehouse of the storage container company where the raw materials of the corporation are stored should be maintained and it should not be overcrowded. The impact of the explosion could have been minimized if the rules and rules were accurately followed by the port authorities in china. Sodium Cyanide which is a very sensitive material should have been stored in a protected environment across the port in China.
Contamination	Storage container company uses sodium Cyanide which is a very toxic material which has the capability of infecting the respiratory system a human body. The contamination occurred when it mixed with water and forms a destructive acid. The persistent property of this acid is its ability to stay in the water even after the risks mitigation process is activated in the storage container company.
Aerial Effects	The toxic gases spread after the major accident had a negative effect on the environment by polluting the air causing severe health hazards across Tianjin. The fumes which are released after the accident caused many health-related problems even months after the accident.
Toxicity	Apart from the sodium cyanide and ammonium nitrate the presence of the other types of toxic chemicals such as potassium nitrate and calcium carbide affected the entire city of Tianjin. These had a very direct on the environment by affecting the fertilization section of the agriculture industry as well as in the food preservation sectors of the Chinese city. The presences of gas acetylene have a significant role to play the spreading of the calcium nitrate in affecting the nature. The extensive use of calcium carbide in China is on the rising stage and it adversely affects the environment in different kinds of ways.

Sl. No.	Risk	Description	Likelihood	Impact
1	Risks on Human beings	The risk associated with human beings with this major accident in China is maximum causing different types of health issues such as respiratory problems, problems related to reproduction system and nervous system was common in the surrounding locations of China.	3	5
2	Risks on Society	There are different kinds of risks associated with this tragedy which have a direct negative impact on the Chinese society as well. The pollution level got increased after the accident throughtout China, even after months people were suffering due to various reasons. The entire business model was impacted by this huge accident of Tianjin.	4	5
3	Risks on Environment	There are several types of environmental issues related to this accident in Tianjin, these issues are discussed in this unit. This event affected the environment by infecting the surrounding land causing a loss in the agriculture industry. Birds and animals of Tianjin were also affected by this accident. Their health conditions started to decrease, many epidemics occurred which often resulted in death. Even the domestic animals who were always in good condition because of the supervision of their owners got affected by this global accident.	3	4
4	Risk due to the negligence of the corporation	There are different types of risks involved due to the negligence of the container storage authorities in China. Proper knowledge should have been given to all the concerned employees who dedicatedly work with harmful chemicals every day to create awareness regarding the harmful chemicals used by them.	2	4
5	Lack of Response	The lack of response after the huge explosions in Tianjin,China is one of the main risks associated with this accident, supervisors should have been more careful about the process by which the fire is spread to the entire area. The emergency fire management service teams should have been informed before the immediate evacuation process.	4	4
6	Improper understanding of the harmful chemicals	Employees of storage container company  who are regularly working with the harmful chemicals should be given proper and appropriate training by the experienced professionals of the organisation so that there is awareness about the risks associated in that particular issue.	3	5
7	Error in the analysing the risks	Before the entire process gets started in the storage container company  effective risk management techniques should be incorporated by the corporations and all the possible risks need to be analysed and resolved as much as possible.	2	2

Impact 1: Lowest risk

Impact 2: Lower risk

Impact 3: Low risk

Impact 4: Moderate risk

Impact 5: Moderately high risk

Impact 6: High risk

Impact 7: Highest risk

Risks on Human beings, risk on the society and the risk involving the understanding of the harmful chemicals are maximum risks which need to be reduced on an urgent basis.

These types of risk mitigation plan which are needed to be adapted by the storage container company in order to manage the risks associated the with this accident (Du et al., 2015). There are different types of risks associated with that huge accident and it should be solved according to the priority as discussed below:

Risks	Mitigation Plans
Risk on Human beings	People living around the storage container company should be aware of all the issues related to this industry.
Risks on Society	The management of this storage container company  should be pre-analysing the challenges before the production process starts which will help to maintain balance on the society (Koks et al., 2015).
Risks on Environment	There should be separate teams within the storage container company  who will be looking forward to the engage all the activities with respect to the environment.
Risk due to the negligence of the corporation	Risk management teams should be regularly considering all the aspects of the disasters which might happen in the future rather than just waiting for the disaster (Huang & Zhang, 2015).
Lack of Response	The response team of this storage container company in Tianjin, China should be given proper advanced training to deal with the situations.
Improper understanding of the harmful chemicals	Team working with the harmful chemicals of storage container company in Tianjin, China should aware of the consequences of handling such harmful chemicals
Error in the analysing the risks	The efficiency of the quality analysis team of the storage container company in Tianjin, China should be maintained at any cost which will be helping the corporation to analyse those risk and all the risk agents, thus minimizing the issue to a significant agent (Yuan et al., 2015).

This huge accident which involved a series of explosions over a span of 3-4 days in one of the most important business ports in China had different types of the uncertainty of risks (Goerlandt & Kujala, 2014). The judgement of the risk accessors is really important for the decision-making methods in this famous accident. These different types of useful techniques will be helping to minimize all the problems related to the accident (Gardoni & Murphy, 2014). There are different kinds of uncertainty regulations in storage container company  in Tianjin, China which are  needed to be  of identified and managed as these issues negatively impact the business operations for many weeks to come (Kou, Peng & Wang, 2014). Identifications of the possible threats of the storage container company in Tianjin, China are one of the most important uses of the decision-making methods as it provides a great help in the approximation of the likelihood that those threats will materialize. The other advantage of the risk analysis of the storage container company in Tianjin, China is the estimation of the reasons and consequences of the accident as well as the security protocols involved in the accident. The importance of this analysis of this major accident also involves accurate plans regarding making forecasts about any issue, the power of anticipation increases due to it. This analysis is required to understand whether the steps followed in mitigating the risks are working properly or not. The existing risk management techniques of the container company in Tianjin should be improved with the help of the risk analysis, all the flaws associated with the analysis can be acknowledged and modified with the practice of risk analysis. All the new terms and conditions set by the different nongovernmental organisation as well as the instructions provided by the government can be followed by using the risk analysis methods.

Management

There are different types of limitations associated with the accident which occurred in China 2015 where the government of China and later the military service of China conducted a detailed risk analysis and concluded that they understood the risk and along with that they provided effective risk mitigation steps which are required to overcome the situation but following these are also not easy as different types of limitations are attached with this. Collectively they achieved best-informed estimations of a likelihood of various events taking place. The impacted area was seized by the government of China months after the explosion so one of the prime limitations of the risk analysis is the lack of actual valid data from the sites as there are many areas where the analysis ere developed by assumptions. The insufficient experience of the risk analysis team is also a matter of concern and is an important limitation regarding the risk analysis. The different type of environmental factors of the Tianjin disaster is also considered as a limitation regarding this accident (Ayyub, 2014). The information gaps between the members of the risk analysis team of this storage company can the other limitation of the risk analysis.

There are different types of safety case regulations involving the major disaster which occurred in China, it has both positive and negative applications (Hyun et al., 2015). Primary perquisites are performance standards required to set specific performances of those arrangements and enabling the continued efficacy in practice to get monitored (Li et al., 2015). The fire and safety regulation developed by the government of China help in a great way to implement the strategies of the training. All of these risk mitigation steps are considered on the basis of all the engineering activities of the storage container station in Tianjin, China. It helped in the enhancement of the inherent security and denote safety systems (Ayre et al., 2014). The other important applications include the ability to perform the risk mitigation steps needed due to an explosion and fire analysis.

The different types of risks associated with a major blast in the Tianjin China in 2015 are discussed in this section of the paper. It will help the reader to under more about the accident also understand its characteristics and severity. The illegal storage of thousands of tones of hazardous chemicals are the prime reasons behind this major accident. The emergency mitigation teams were unaware of those harmful chemicals, as a result, the water which is used by them in the industry helped the fire to spread more instead of containing the fire which worsened the situation (Bolger & Rowe, 2015). The water mixed with those harmful chemicals and released toxic compounds in the air and water system of the surrounding areas of the factory. Among the dead people, there was around 104 firefighter who died due to the lack of proper knowledge, this issue could have been avoided bit negligence among the authorities of both the container storage company and the firefighting departments cost them their lives (Ashofteh, Haddad & Marino, 2014).

Operational Plan

The risk communication plan regarding this famous explosion in China in 2015 involves all the workers working in the firm, there is an urgent need to educate them about the potential hazards of each of the toxic chemicals. Not only the worker all the people living in the surrounding areas must also be aware of the threats. One of the important tasks of the risk communication team is to validate their methods amongst all the parties (Arnold & Yildiz, 2015). Both the ecological risk management and human health risk management are managed by the communication plan.

The different steps of ecological risk communication plan considering the Tianjin disaster are:

• Characterisation of the possible risks
• Planning and Scoping
• Formulation of the problems
• Stress response and exposure analysis.

The different steps of the human health risk communication plan considering the Tianjin disaster are:

• Risk characterization.
• Planning and Scoping.
• Acute Hazards.
• Hazard identification and response.
• Exposure assessment.

The risk communication plan which is adopted by the Chinese authorities such as banning the media from telecasting any type of new related to the accident for the purpose of minimizing the spreading of fake news which can further damage the situation (Zhu et al., 2015). But instead of tackling the situation in that way the authorities of the storage container company should have stressed on the correct way of taking down the fire.

• The knowledge which was given to the workers or the firefighter was not enough to tackle the situations, in fact, the firefighter was misled which negatively impacted the situation rather than improving the situation. The communication plan of the container storage firm should be based on a science-based approach for maximum effectivity.
• The different view of risk mitigation strategy among all the different stakeholders of that container storage should have been the same as it would minimize the effect of the tragedy.
• The risk communication plan of the container storage corporation should be developed considering all the stakeholders of the storage company as well all the other people who are in the blast radius such as people living with 1-2 miles of the factory.
• The risk communication plan of the container storage station should be made on different languages as it will helpful for the workers who are not comfortable with the local language.
• Different kinds of communication tools such as social media should be encouraged for the promotion of the risk communication plans (Huq et al., 2016). Workers of the container storage station should be collectively agreeing on any decision making in the social media itself.

Hence it can be said that an effective risk communication plan is really helpful to regain the trust and confidence of the impacted peoples of that accident which diminished significantly after the tragedy.

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that effective risk management technique should have been taken by both the authorities of the storage container as well as the government authorities of China. This report presented a useful plan to measure and manage all the risks associated with this accident. The different types of risk analysing technique should be updated on a regular basis as the agent and means of the threat changes with time. The corporations should be taking all the possible necessary steps in order to deal with similar situations in a more efficient way. The quality of the risk analysing team of container storage station should also be updated after regular intervals so that it can deal with the most updated problems.

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