Are Disasters Really Getting Worse?

Have disasters become more frequent and more severe? We often assume that they have but a review of the evidence does not support this view,so far as the oil and chemical industries are concerned. In the 1970s the size of the chemical industry doubled but the number and frequency of accidents killing five or more people remained constant. However, in the 1980s, although the frequency remained the same there were more major incidents and more people died. Two forgotten, nineteenth century disasters, which resulted, like Hillsborough (1989), from the failure of crowd control, are described.