This study analyzes data on households' risk perception and protective behavior following a natural disaster triggered technological accident (Natech accident) that occurred at an industrial park in Sendai during the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, on 11 March 2011.
A natural disaster triggered technological accident (Natech accident) was first defined by Showalter and Myers (1992) when they reviewed the causes of chemical accidents triggered by natural hazard events.
Technological accidents are commonly the product of an accumulation of mistakes, misunderstanding or negligent behavior of various individuals involved in the development, use and maintenance of computer systems, including designers, engineers, technicians, regulators, managers, users, manufacturers, sellers, resellers and even policy makers.
The evaluation of vulnerability of process equipment to natural events is a central issue in the analysis of NaTech risks (Natural events triggering Technological accidents).
In the last decades, moreover, the problem of the technological accidents induced by natural disruptive events (Na-tech) acquired an increasing relevance; although several methodologies to assess this kind of risk were developed, their adoption is still not explicitly requested in the regulations, neither related to major risk installations.
Natural and ecological disasters, nuclear weapons, terrorism, experimental technological accidents ("Oops, we've accidentally created Skynet") – they're all in the game.
Terrorist attacks or technological accidents involving nuclear weapons; pandemic diseases that cannot be cured; comets and asteroids that could wipe out the human race.
Building on these bow-ties, the risk analysis methodology will be completed and a checklist simple to use, along with a list proposing preventive and protective measures, to be used by operators in order to decrease the vulnerability of their industrial facilities to technological accidents triggered by floods will be developed in future work.
We believe that many more extreme events will happen in the near future --floods anaturalr natural disasters, new modes of terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda, technological accidents, and pandemics.
Thus, the consequences of uncontrollable technological accidents as well as the impact of waste products -- whether it be greenhouse gases, toxins or nuclear waste -- upon the biosphere will always also be borne by people who had no opportunity to decide for or against the use of a certain technology.
