1. Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai (RIT, Dubai University)
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 
STRATEGY/EXHIBITION
Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai (RIT, Dubai University)
 23rd to 25th August 2017.

2. DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
BY ENGR. PROF. ALUYOR O. EMMANUEL ACTING VICE-CHANCELLOR, EDO UNIVERSITY IYAMHO,EDO STATE, NIGERIA.

3. INTRODUCTION
The word ‘risk’ is a commonly used word and indeed applies to all walks of life.
Even simple everyday activities involve some element of risk arising from the existence of diverse conditions with the potential to cause harm and/or disaster and depending on one’s perception of the likelihood and severity of the recognized dangers, appropriate measures are taken to forestall any unpleasant event from occuring.
The process of identifying potential dangers, evaluating them in terms of likelihood and severity and taking steps to avert these potential dangers is in a basic sense what risk management is about.
The fields of Engineering and Technology are however somewhat distinguished in this discuss of disaster risk management in the sense that the potentials, scope and severity of catastrophic harm that may arise from engineering and technological practices are much more vast when compared to other disciplines.

4. INTRODUCTION CONTD.
The failure of an engineer or an engineering team to perform effective and efficient disaster risk management activity can result in the loss of much lives and property with attendant consequences for even the generations yet unborn.
Furthermore, the process of Disaster risk management in Engineering and Technology is not usually very simplistic and entails detailed and complex engagements by a team of competent professionals including engineers, technologists, economists, legal practitioners etc. employing a wide variety of data collation, analytical and simulation tools.
We would be examining causes and examples of disasters in engineering and technology as well as the necessity and approach for disaster risk management in engineering and technology.

5. SOME DEFINITION OF TERMS
DISASTER: It is described as a serious disruption , occurring over a relatively short time, of the functioning of a community, society or organization involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss and impacts which exceeds the ability of the affected society or organization to cope using its own resources.
Disasters can be natural or man-made.
Man-made disasters can be averted via effective, efficient and consistent disaster risk management and safety practices. The practice of preventing man-made disasters in the practice of engineering and technology is the focus of this presentation.
RISK: A risk is the possibility or chance of loss, harm or injury to persons, the environment, assets and/or production arising from exposure to hazardous conditions.

6. DEFINITION OF TERMS CONTD.
HAZARD: A hazard entails a physical, chemical or environmental condition which has the potential of causing harm to people, the environment, assets and/or production.
VULNERABILITY: is the degree to which people, the environment, assets and/or production are susceptible to the impacts of hazards
Risk, hazard and vulnerability are connected thus;
RISK = HAZARD × VULNERABILITY
RISK MANAGEMENT: The complete process of understanding risk, risk assessment, and decision making to ensure effective risk controls are in place and implemented.

7. WHAT IS DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE ENGINEERING CONTEXT?
Disaster risk management in engineering and technology can be defined as a set of strategic, organized activities geared towards hazards identification, risk analysis and assessment coupled with the decision to completely avoid the risky practice/process or to continue with the risky process and put measures in place to significantly lower the possibility and severity of the risks so as to prevent man-made disasters in the engineering and technological practice.

8. WHY ALL THESE TALK ABOUT DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING
AND TECHNOLOGY?
IS IT REALLY SO IMPORTANT?

9. The lives of countless number of people are at stake
ETHICS
The lives of countless number of people are at stake
LAW
resource consuming litigations and heavy sanctions/penalties awaits defaulters
FINANCE
Who wants to go bankrupt?

10. LET US SEE SOME HISTORICAL EXAMPLES
PLEASE, COME WITH ME

11. THE FLIXBOROUGH DISASTER
In June 1974, near the village of Flixborough in the United Kingdom, A locally owned chemical plant, while repairing one of its chemical reactors, produced a discharge of 40 tons of cyclohexane, which formed a vapour cloud. The cloud exploded and completely destroyed the plant, about 1,800 buildings were damaged on a more than 1.5 km radius.
28 deaths and 36 severe injuries were recorded
Two months prior to the explosion, the number 5 reactor was discovered to be leaking.  It was decided to install a temporary pipe to bypass the leaking reactor to allow continued operation of the plant while repairs were made. In the absence of 28-inch nominal bore pipe (DN 700 mm), 20-inch nominal bore pipe (DN 500 mm) was used to fabricate the bypass pipe for linking reactor 4 outlet to reactor 6 inlet and this slack in using standard materials of appropriate capacity proved fatal
Also, in a chemical plant, there is need for other engineering professionals and not only chemical engineers as was the case in this incidence

12. BUNCEFIELD FIRE
The Buncefield fire was a major conflagration caused by a series of explosions on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal ,an oil storage facility located near the M1 motorway by Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England
244 persons were hospitalised, so many properties were destroyed.
A tank called ‘Tank 912’ at the Buncefield oil storage depot was being filled with petrol. The tank had a manual level gauge and an independent high-level switch for fluid-level control
On Tank 912, the manual gauge was stuck and the independent shut-off switch was inoperative, meaning that the tank was being filled without a clear indication of the level.
Eventually Tank 912 filled up completely, the petrol overflowed through vents at the top, and formed a vapour cloud near ground level, which ignited and exploded. 

13. BAIA MARE CYANIDE SPILL
The Baia Mare cyanide spill in 2000 was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania, into the Someş River by the gold mining company Aurul.
A vast host of wildlife and fishes were destroyed and the drinking water supplies of about 2.5 million people all over central and eastern Europe were affected
On the night of January 30, 2000, a dam holding contaminated waters burst and 100,000 cubic metres (3,500,000 cu ft) of cyanide-contaminated water (containing an estimated 100 tonnes of cyanide) spilled over some farmland and then into the Someș river.
The Hungarian government called the storing of cyanide next to a river madness
A European Union report on the disaster blamed the design faults at the mine.

14. TEXAS CITY REFINERY EXPLOSIONS
In 2005, a disaster at a major petroleum refinery in Texas City, United States, was considered
US’ worst industrial disaster in 15 years.
15 persons were killed and 180 were injured
The Texas BP refinery that day was re-starting a unit that had been down for repairs. It was a tower processing unit being filled with gasoline. Due to malfunctioning equipment and sensors, the tower overflowed with excess gas then going into a back-up unit, which also overflowed, sending a geyser of gasoline into the air which grew into a massive vapour cloud.
The vapour cloud was ignited by the spark from a truck engine whose operator was not aware of the impending danger resulting in multiple explosions

15. TOULOUSE EXPLOSION
In September 2001, an explosion occurred in a shed containing about 300 tonnes of downgraded ammonium nitrate at the AZF chemical plant in Toulouse, France.
The incident resulted in the death of 31 people, injured more than 4,500 people and 27,000 buildings were destroyed
The chemical plant itself was completely destroyed forming a crater 7m deep with a 40m diameter.
Sodium dichloroisocyanurate and ammonium nitrate mishandling and uncontrolled reaction was identified as the cause of the disaster

16. THE BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY
The Bhopal disaster is acclaimed the world’s worst industrial disaster.  on the night of December 2, 1984, an accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released over 40 tons of a highly toxic gas called Methyl-isocyanate (MIC), as well as a number of other poisonous gases
Over 600,000 persons were exposed to the toxic gases and about 15,000 deaths have resulted over the years.
Persons exposed to the toxic gas have been found to give birth over the years to physically and/or mentally challenged children
A combination of factors ranging from hazardous handling of dangerous chemical substances to the use of obsolete and malfunctioning industrial equipment and poor communication and transparency resulted in the disaster.
Water entered an MIC tank and set-off a series of uncontrolled exothermic reactions which resulted in an atmospheric venting of a host of poisonous gases

17. THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR DISASTER
The fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred in March, 2011  initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011.
It resulted in the evacuation of 154,000 people of which 1,600 have died over the years due to psychological trauma as a result of the disaster
After the earthquake, the active reactors shut down their reactions. However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators needed to provide power to operate the cooling pumps for the reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of large amounts of radioactive material into the environment
Warnings on need to put measures in place to maintain safety in case of a disaster flooding like a tsunami were ignored and taken as ‘nonsense’
Flaws in authorities' handling of the crisis, including poor communication and coordination between nuclear regulators, utility officials, and the government worsened the crisis

18. CAUSES OF DISASTERS IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

19. CAUSES OF DISASTERS IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
There are a variety of causes of industrial accidents and disasters in engineering and technology. However, these causes are categorized into four (4) broad categories which are:
Technological failures
Human Failures
Management system failures
External Circumstances and natural phenomena.

20. THE DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT APPROACH

21. THE DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT APPROACH IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
A general collection of the activities that constitute the disaster risk management process in engineering and technology is given thus;
Planned reviews
Identification of hazards
Risk analysis
Risk assessment (Is the risk acceptable as it is or not)
Managing the residual risk (If the risk is acceptable as it is)
Reducing the risk (If the risk is not acceptable as it is) and Rechecking for hazards and acceptability of the risks involved
Discontinuing the process or practice (If the risk is not acceptable and not sufficiently reducible)

22. Want big impact? Use big image.
Figure 1: The Disaster Risk Management Process

23. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVED DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
A concerted and continued academia focus on safety and Disaster risk management
Industry – Academia partnership in research activities bordering on safety and Disaster risk management should be encouraged
The ‘Drift factor’ should be avoided : Companies should not compromise on disaster risk management so as to cut down costs and increase profit
Laws for the protection of lives, properties and the environment should be promulgated and enforced to the letter

24. CONCLUSION
We may not have absolute control of all the factors that may result in an engineering or technological disaster, but if only we would take a competent grasp of those factors that are within our control, a lot can be achieved in the area of Disaster risk management in engineering and technology.

25. Thanks!
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