Analysis of past Natech Events in a Resilience Perspective

Natural hazards are able to trigger complex cascading accident scenarios that harm simultaneously individuals, cities, and industries, compromising the ability of the society to withstand and recover from such disasters. In response, the research is going through the development of a holistic safety management framework that integrates Resilience Engineering insights. However, especially in high-risk industries, where natural hazards may trigger technological accidents (Natech events), the development of quantitative resilience assessment tools poses significant challenges due to the complexity of incorporating Natech features as well as the long-term effects of such scenarios. In this study, a systematic analysis of past accidents triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake was performed. Statistical features of the collected dataset were analyzed to characterize the impact of an extreme natural event on industrial installation. In addition, a detailed analysis of selected reference events revealed valuable insight related to the resilience features. Finally, the results of the analysis were discussed in the current framework of methodologies for the resilience assessment of Natech scenarios to identify open gaps and outline future research directions.