AN ANALYSIS OF THE DATABASE COVERAGE OF INDUSTRIAL-ACCIDENTS INVOLVING HAZARDOUS MATERIALS IN EUROPE

The purpose of the present analysis is to explore systematic ways to a ddress the problem of how many accidents involving hazardous materials actually occur in Europe, and to make a realistic estimate. A framewo rk for predicting the total number of accidents was therefore develope d and applied. The analysis is based on 535 unique accident descriptio ns (of which 107 were fatal accidents) from seven accident databases c overing the nine-year period from 1984 to 1992. The majority (70%) of the accident descriptions identified were found in one source only. Th is indicates that, at best, about 30% of all accidents described may b e found in a single database. Two models were developed: the first mod el was based on ideas similar to 'chemical reaction kinetics'; the sec ond was more related to 'estimations of an animal population'. The mod els predict an average of 87 accidents per year in contrast to the obs erved average of 59 accidents per year. For fatal accidents, the model s predict an average of 14 accidents per year, and the observed averag e is 12.