This paper briefly recapitulates some of the major accidents in chemical process industries
which occurred during 1926–1997. These case studies have been analysed with a view to
understand the damage potential of various types of accidents, and the common causes or
errors which have led to disasters. An analysis of different types of accidental events such as
fire, explosion and toxic release has also been done to assess the damage potential of such
events. It is revealed that vapour cloud explosion (VCE) poses the greatest risk of damage …