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Lessons from 3 of History’s Worst Workplace Disasters

By Safeopedia Staff
Last updated: August 17, 2017
Key Takeaways

We have a duty not to repeat the mistakes of the past. From tragedy has come progress in worker safety.

If you've ever worked on the frontlines of any industry, you know that we're still far from living in an accident-free world. Unfortunately, that includes fatalities.

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Someone getting killed on the job is always a tragedy. But in this article, we'll be looking at full-blown disasters – workplace safety failures that killed hundreds or thousands. And while two of the incidents we'll cover happened more than a century ago, the other is shockingly recent.

These events have more in common than the scale of devastation. They also taught us important lessons about protecting workers and serve as continual reminders of what can happen when we don't do enough to make our workplaces as safe as they could be.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911)

On March 25, 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s New York City factory killed 146 workers, mostly women.

Like many manufacturing facilities at the time, this factory didn't have any kind of fire safety in place. No sprinklers, no fire alarms, no emergency exits – none of the features we all take for granted today.

With no alarm system in place, some of the workers only knew a fire had broken out when they felt the heat or smelled the smoke emanating from it. Even without early warning, many more workers could have still made it out alive if they actually had a way to leave the building. Unfortunately, their options were slim. One of the doors had been locked from the outside to prevent workers from sneaking off for unauthorized breaks. There was a fire escape, but it was too narrow to facilitate a swift escape for so many workers and too strong to hold them, collapsing under their collective weight.

Collapsed fire escape in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.Source: TIME

While the number of fatalities pale in comparison to those of other disasters (it isn't even the most deadly disaster in the garment industry), the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is a significant historical turning point. This shocking tragedy pushed North American legislators to recognize that a jobsite free of unreasonable danger is not a luxury but a cornerstone of workers' rights.

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The fact that so many women died in such a horrific manner had an emotional impact on the public and led directly to the founding of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). The incident also resulted in New York City making sprinklers mandatory for all factories within the city. From there, fire safety laws began spreading across North America, culminating in the fire safety systems that keep workers safe today.

It is also an important reminder never to set safety aside for the sake of productivity. Employers no longer lock workers inside a factory to ensure they work diligently, thankfully. But that doesn't mean that safety always comes first. Many will encourage workers to meet difficult targets and deadlines even if it means cutting corners on the safety procedures or bending safety policies.

(For related reading, check out Muster Points: How to Keep Your Team Safe During an Emergency)

The Halifax Explosion (1917)

The Halifax harbor was already a busy and critical part of the city, but the war turned it into a major hub to move supplies into Europe once U-boats forced shipping to use less frequented routes. The harbor was overseen by three separate authorities: the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and sailors and merchants from the city. Without a clear and singular authority overseeing its operation, the harbor's traffic grew and turned into a barely controlled chaos, even on its best days.

It was perhaps only a matter of time before a major incident happened, though few could have predicted just how serious that incident would be.

On December 6, 1917 the chaos of the harbor turned into something far worse. That morning, a ship known as the Mont-Blanc arrived at the harbor from New York City carrying nearly 3,000 tons of explosive and combustible materials, including 250 tons of TNT.

The Mont-Blanc was a literal powder keg. And in the unregulated chaos of the harbor, it collided with another ship. The collision sparked a fire on the Mont-Blanc, essentially lighting the fuse on a massive, 320-foot bomb.

The crew, aware of the risks, abandoned ship and made their way to the shore. Harbor authorities, meanwhile, had no idea of the dangers until it was too late.

The Mont-Blanc exploded, killing more than 1,500 people and destroying everything within a two-kilometer radius. The destruction didn't end there, however. Flying glass and other debris were followed by a tsunami. Hundreds more people died in the aftermath of the blast.

Aftermath of the Halifax explosion.Source: Radio Canada

The Halifax Explosion encouraged the standardization of municipal safety equipment, as firefighters from other districts struggled to get their hoses and equipment to fit. It accelerated the practice of disaster planning and brought home the fact that growing cities can be prey to massive disasters that overwhelm nearby facilities while leaving other resources underutilized. And, of course, it definitely led to stricter international maritime standards, detailed reporting systems, and professional harbor management.

For safety professionals and employers, it serves as a stark example of what can happen without clear communication and a well-defined chain of command. Being able to quickly work out issues, having a dedicated procedure to ensure that no one is trying to work in the spot, and knowing who to defer to when there is a need for mediation will all ensure a safe outcome – even when you're dealing with something far less deadly than a cargo filled with explosives.

(For further reading, see Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans).

Rana Plaza Collapse (2013)

The Rana Plaza Collapse (also known as the Bangladesh Factory Collapse) was by all accounts an accident waiting to happen. The building itself was structurally suspect even before additional floors were built without securing proper permits. The workers also raised concerns about the safety of the structure, but were ignored by the owners and managers.

All the issues with Rana Plaza could have been fixed, but management appeared to have been highly protective of their slim profit margins. The factory operated as a low cost clothing manufacturer for overseas brands. Any major expenditure would either eat into the company's profits or force them to stop offering highly competitive rates to their clients.

The building started showing cracks the day before the collapse, but management bullied the workers into coming in the next day under threat of forfeiting their month’s pay. At least 1,100 workers died when the factory collapsed. Another 2,500 were injured.

The scale of the disaster resulted in criminal charges against the managers and owners. It also prompted an international consumer backlash against companies using offshore production they knew lacked basic safety standards.

The aftermath of the Rana Plaza Collapse.Source: The Guardian

Unlike the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and the Halifax Explosion, the Rana Plaza Collapse is not a distant historical event but one that is still very recent. Without the benefit of a hundred years of hindsight, it's difficult to say what concrete changes have come about as a direct result of this tragedy. Some corporations took steps to ensure that their overseas supply chain is assessed more carefully and that the safety of the workers who produce their goods is taken seriously.

Time will tell whether the Rana Plaza Collapse will result in more stringent safety standards for the global supply chain. However, it does stress the importance of addressing safety issues before they become incidents. While the workers raised concerns about significant and obvious structural damage, even minor issues have the potential to balloon into serious ones – often far more quickly than workers or supervisors predict. A comprehensive maintenance program will also catch issues before they become evident and more difficult to remedy.

Of course, as this factory collapse shows, identifying problems means nothing unless concrete steps are taken to address them. Addressing issues promptly is the only way to keep your workplace safe and avert catastrophes.

(Learn more about Maintaining Public Trust by Protecting Your Temporary Workers)

The Unredeemable Disasters

You may be wondering why some other disasters haven't made it into this article despite causing great devastation. The reason is that many of them have not resulted in any direct and significant changes to workplace safety.

There is the Bhopal Disaster, a toxic gas leak that killed over 3,000 people in 1984 and may have indirectly resulted in the deaths of 15,000 more. That event was either caused by sabotage of poor corporate oversight – perhaps both. The 1942 Benhixu Colliery mining disaster killed over 1,500 forced laborers through negligence that borders on homicidal. Unfortunately, these and many other large-scale industrial catastrophes have been met with a depressing lack of progress.

While the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Halifax Explosion, and the Rana Plaza Collapse were undeniably horrible events, they at least left us with some hard earned lessons that have improved safety for future workers – or in the case of the Rana Plaza Collapse, some signs of hope for future improvement.

This is an extraordinary price to pay for progress, but we should never let a disaster happen without taking steps to ensure that history won't repeat itself.

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Written by Safeopedia Staff

Safeopedia Staff

At Safeopedia, we think safety professionals are unsung superheroes in many workplaces. We aim to support and celebrate these professionals and the work they do by providing easy access to occupational health and safety information, and by reinforcing safe work practices.

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