Morwell Coal Mine Fire as a Cascading Disaster: A Case Study

Abstract

Introduction:Despite the influential Hyogo and Sendai Frameworks, risk remains poorly understood in the emergency preparedness sector. Hazard assessment and risk management are usually considered before events. An alternative view considers risk as a cascade of potential consequences throughout an event. The 2014 fire in the Victorian rural community of Morwell included a three-phased event: a small bush fire, from which embers ignited a persistent fire in a disused open cut brown coal mine fire. The consequent air pollution precipitated a public health emergency in the nearby community of 15,000 people.Aim:To examine this event as a case study to investigate concordance with accepted definitions and key elements of a cascading event.Methods:Selected literature informed a risk cascade definition and model as a framework to examine the key post-event public inquiries available in the public domain.Results:Informed by a Conceptual Framework for a Hazard Evolving into a Disaster (Birnbaum et al., 2015), Wong and colleagues promote a Core Structure of a Comprehensive Framework for Disaster Evaluation Typologies (Wong, 2017). This Core Structure provided an adequate model to examine the sequence of events in the Morwell event. Definitions of cascading effects is more complex (Zuccaro et al., 2018). Our analysis of the Morwell event used the authoritative definition of cascading disasters published by Pescaroli and Alexander (2015). Using this definition, the Morwell event increased in progression over time and generated unexpected secondary events of strong impact. The secondary events could be distinguished from the original source of disaster, and demonstrated failures of physical structures as well as inadequacy of disaster mitigation strategies, while highlighting unresolved vulnerabilities in human society.Discussion:The Morwell coal mine fire of 2014 reflects the key criteria of a cascading disaster and provides understandings to mitigate the consequences of similar events in the future.