Investigation Of The Kaprun Incident: Tourism Supply Chains And Natural Disasters

Summary of the Kaprun incident

Question:

Discuss About The Tourism Supply Chains And Natural Disasters?

The investigation has been conducted by the Decisive Incident Investigation Team (DIIT) that has been intended to scrutinize every detail of the Kaprun incident to uncover the actual grounds of the incident. Primarily, a team of four members who are experts in investigation had visited the scene and initiated in-depth exploration of the disaster effectually. They carry a good record in terms of quality investigation and cater effectual findings of the incidents.

The incident took place at Kaprun while an ascending train was heading to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier carrying 167-passengers comprising of men, women and children. While travelling on the route, a sudden fire has caught on the back end of the train while the train was passing through a 3.2 kilometers tunnel. It has created a massive loss of life resulting in death of 155 people by the fire blaze that has broken out. Besides that, two more people had died due to the inhalation of toxic smoke in the train. All the passengers who had boarded the train were mostly skiers, travelling to the glacier mountain with an objective to go for skiing (Ho & Hsu, 2014).

Although there are inadequate evidences that would assist to identify the root cause and the suspects however, there are few evidences that have been found as well as gathered from considerable sources, and those are as follows:

• The lower end of the train was fully burnt
• The walls of the tunnel have been damaged by the toxic smoke and it displays black spots all over
• Ashes of the burnt train’s metal base has been spread all over the tunnel
• Melted rubbers of passengers ski boots found on the rugs of ladder which was for quick escape purpose

Summary of interview: An assortment of interviews has been conducted with the local people who has eye-witnessed the incident as well as the concerned railway staffs, with an objective of gathering some amount of information that would be valid in nature (Carattin & Brannigan, 2014).  

According to the interview report of BBC news, the major reason for the incident was due to a malfunctioning radiator of the funicular train that has sparkled all of a sudden while the train was passing down the tunnel (Edgar, Sharples & Sidhu, 2016). On the other hand, as stated by the president of district court of Salzburg to the concerned journalists that a amalgamation of aspects has led to this dangerous incident. Besides that, with a presentation of report that has been developed with assistance of five experts has said the ventilator of the heater inside the cabinet of driver was become jammed or blocked and which caused the blaze (Breiling, 2016). With support to the statement, he had also added that possibly there must be a leak of hydraulic oil, which was dripping from a cable into the heater and then spread all over where the blaze then inflamed heavily (Zia & Mitleton-Kelly, 2013). 

Factors contributing to the Kaprun incident

Images of physical evidence:  Please refer to Appendices 1, 2 and 3 in the Appendices section. There, the set of images that has been provided displays the leftover evidences, which was found within the spot of the incident. This would cater a clear review of the incident that has occurred during the month of November, dated 11 in the year of 2000.

More than a few interviews have been carried out with the people living in the surrounding region as well as with the railway officials. Primarily, the interview was verbal in nature and no sound recording has been conducted due to security and privacy concerns of interviewees. However, the financial are significant and which have shed light on the investigation process effectively. Overall, seven interviews has been conducted that includes five interviewees are the local natives and two interviewees are the railway officials who were on the scene when the event has taken place. Below is the interview pattern that has been conducted.

Questions	Responses
What is your name?	My name is Johannes Judith.
How old are you?	Well, I am 32 years old.
What is your occupation?	I am a carpenter by profession
What did you saw during the incident?	I saw a huge cloud of smoke coming out constantly from the tunnel and a massive flame out bursting.
How many casualties have you seen so far?	It would be around112 people.
What would be the reason behind this horrific incident?	I cannot comment on this.

In order to gather considerable evidences, it is significant to apply methodologies and structure to make it more effective and factual in nature. Concerning to such, a Quadrant Model has been utilized to analyse the evidences more closely and effectually.

	Interior	Exterior
Individual	·         Negligence of duty ·         Improper management system	·         Burnt metal base of the train ·         Blame on the railway officials
Collective	·         Operations of the management ·         Compliance to duty and responsibilities	·         Failure of railway officials in scrutinizing the details of the incident ·         Negatives perceptions of native against the officials

Fig 1: Quadrant model of Kaprun train incident

Negligence of duty: It has been noticed as well as observed from the evidences and findings that there must be any sort of negligence in duty by the railways officials (Carattin & Brannigan, 2013). It has been placed in the individual and in the interior quadrant as it was observed and set for first priority.

Improper management system: The ineffectiveness in the management could possibly lead the incident took place (Lisanti et al., 2015). It has been placed second in the interior quadrant as it holds significance.

Burnt metal base of the train: The found metal base of the train has brought significant recognition about the damages (Björck, 2016). Input in the exterior quadrant as it has been gathered externally.

Blame on the railways officials: The public and the relatives of the victims had blamed the official for the inappropriateness on their conduct of duty. This event occurred due to the unanswered questions of the public and failure of finding the reasons behind (Silei, 2014).

Operations of the management: The functionalities of the management of funicular train are not effective enough, as has lack of responsibility concerns that has made the situation critical (Ho & Chen, 2015). It has been placed in the collective and exterior quadrant as the evidence gathered collectively.

Quadrant Model of Kaprun train incident

Compliance to duty and responsibilities: It has been identified that there must be no compliance to duty and responsibility by the officials in evaluating the train conditions effectively (Burns et al., 2013).

Failure of railway officials in scrutinizing the details of the incident: The official has failed to scrutinize the details of the incident and upshot to bring a valid reason for the happening of such incident (Bossong & Hegemann, 2013).

Negative perceptions of natives against the officials: It has been observed by a round of interviews with the native and relatives of the victims that, they were unsatisfied and unhappy with the proceedings of their operations. Moreover, they put the blame of such incident on the railway management totally (Silei, 2014).

In order to analyse the actual cause of the incident, the adoption of Root Cause Analysis (RCA) would be effective in problem solving. Considering such, an effectual RCA has been performed to scrutinize the aspects that have led to the disaster.

Fig 2: Root Cause Analysis

Ineffectiveness of management’s operation: The management of the funicular railway is ineffective in nature and did not conducted their efficiently. There is no specific structure of the management’s operation and it way to conduct proficiently.

Incompliance with rules and policies: The occurrence of such incident indicates that there must be incompliance with rules and regulation of the organisation by the officials predominantly.

Negligence of duty and responsibility: There must be possibility that the official neglected their duty of care and responsibility. Concerning to failure of trains radiator and inattentive response to such malfunctioning indicates such aspect chiefly.

Lack of effectiveness: In the overall, there is a lack of effectiveness in the proceedings of the railway officials to prevent any sort of futility in the operation.

Conclusion

This is to conclude that the factors of evidence, which have been gathered has assisted to shed a light on the investigation effectively. Besides that, it has been identified that the aspects drawn are factual and rationale in terms of reason the causation of such incident precisely.  

Prevention of reoccurrence

It is crucial that effective actions are essential to prevent any such similar occurrence of disaster in the near future; hence valid recommendation would be of great help in this matter. Below are some recommendations to avoid such scenarios.

• Restructure of the overall organisation’s operation
• Establishing a valid and rigid code of conduct
• Officials need to be proficient and effective in performing their duties
• Regular monitoring of overall operation required by the top executives
• Technical staffs need to be attentive and ensure smooth functioning of train’s operation at all times

Management system: The management required to hire employees who are experienced and skilled in this domain to handle responsibilities efficiently.

Automation: The overall railway’s operation system needs to be automated or computerized proficiently which would help to avoid any sort of accidents or incidents.

Additional staffs: The organization required to employ additional staffs who would crosscheck every technical detail prior to the journey of funicular train.

Reference list:

Björck, A. (2016). Crisis Typologies Revisited: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Central European Business Review, 5(3), 25.

Carattin, E., & Brannigan, V. (2014). Lost in abstraction: the complexity of real environments vs the assumptions of models. In Fire Evacuation Model. Tech. Conf.

Carattin, E., & Brannigan, V. (2013). Science or science fiction? The use of human behavioral models in fire safety regulation. Intersci. management, 553-558.

Edgar, R. A., Sharples, J. J., & Sidhu, H. S. (2016). Examining the effects of convective intensity on plume attachment in threedimensional trenches. Chemeca 2016: Chemical Engineering-Regeneration, Recovery and Reinvention, 613.

Breiling, M. (2016). Tourism Supply Chains and Natural Disasters: The Vulnerability Challenge and Business Continuity Models for ASEAN Countries.

Zia, K., & Mitleton-Kelly, E. E. (2013). Agent-based modelling of large-scale socio-technical systems in emergency situations. na.

Lisanti, G., Karaman, S., Pezzatini, D., & Del Bimbo, A. (2015). A multi-camera image processing and visualization system for train safety assessment. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 1-22.

Silei, G. (2014). Technological hazards, disasters and accidents. In The Basic Environmental History (pp. 227-253). Springer International Publishing.

Ho, Y. H., & Chen, L. J. (2015). economics robustness of vehicular networks using virtual frameworks. Telecommunication Systems, 58(4), 329-348.

Burns, P., Stevens, G., Sandy, K., Dix, A., Raphael, B., & Allen, B. (2013). Human behaviour during an evacuation scenario in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, The, 28(1), 20.

Ho, Y. H., & Hsu, W. W. (2014, June). Disaster resilient communication for tunnels and bridges. In World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM), 2014 IEEE 15th International Symposium on a (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

Bossong, R., & Hegemann, H. (2013). ANVIL deliverable 4.1: synthesis report on comparison of civil security systems.