Many of us aren’t aware of the serious outcome of the global lack of awareness when it comes to industries, so if you want to educate yourself on this matter read our list of 10 worst industrial disasters/accidents in the world.
Before the Industrial Revolution and the machines, agriculture was the main resource for people as well as handcrafting. Then the machines took over and the revolution began, changing people’s lives completely. It was a time of economic, technological, and cultural change that started in Britain but soon spread across the world. Factories were built and industries were developed. People left agriculture for factories and started working for a salary. The enormous changes that took place include the use of new materials such as steel and iron, the use of new energy sources, the steam machine, electricity, etc. Improvements in communication, as well as transportation, were significant, including the development of automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio. All in all, the Industrial Revolution marked a new age, one of structure and divided labor that started spreading to other European countries.
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Although it was considered as a huge step forward, the Industrial Revolution also brought major negative consequences that caused suffering and death. One of the gravest consequences of the industrial age is child labor. Since there were no law restrictions at the time that would regulate the new industries, factories hired children to work in the mines and factories full-time. This horrible practice caused countless deaths of children who worked up to 14 hours a day. It was the worse time to be a worker considering that if injured, the worker is immediately fired with no rights of any financial compensation while the government did nothing to help the poor. While cities grew and the economy boomed, the working-class neighborhoods were dirty and polluted, which was a good basis for the developing of countless diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, typhus, etc. Medical treatment was rare, expensive, and would cause even more harm to patients as doctors were not skilled and still prone to using remedies from the Middle Age. There are countless other devastating effects of the Industrial revolution, many of which are visible even today.
Although the situation for workers has greatly improved since then, unfortunately, employees are still not always safe. Even today, when mankind has developed beyond belief, industries still cause much harm, and more often than not, people are still not protected enough from the hazardous industrial waste. Throughout the course of history, many devastating industrial accidents took place, causing the death of thousands of people. Nuclear accidents, Coal dust, gas explosions, and fires have killed so many people in the past and the madness hasn’t stopped yet. Even today, in the modern age where man has managed to control almost everything, industrial disasters are a serious threat. What is even more terrifying, we cannot even begin to fathom the long-term effects of these accidents.
We wrote about 11 Safest Places on Eart from Nuclear Fallout in one of our previous articles, and in this one, we draw attention to the worst industrial disasters/accidents in the world caused by men. In the spirit of remembering and raising awareness of the dangers of industrial accidents, we have collected a list of worst industrial disasters in the world relying on sources like Britannica and CBC News. We ranked them according to the number of casualties, from the lowest to the highest, although long-term consequences of many disasters are still unknown and they may turn out to be even deadlier that we could ever imagine. Take a look at our list of 10 worst industrial disasters/accidents in the world.
