**1. Introduction**

The major industrial accidents are phenomena whose effects threaten the human lives, property and environment. The EU decided to solve this problem in 1982 through the legal tool known as SEVESO I that has been amended three times so far. Currently the SEVESO III Directive is valid and in 2015 Slovakia issued a law about the major industrial accident prevention as amended. These legal regulations determine the rules for handling with hazardous substances and fulfilling procedures connected with their handling procedures in the companies exceeding the amounts defined by the law. The transposition of the new SEVESO III Directive has created the necessary space for modifying the problem areas – also the risk management of the industrial processes.

The major industrial accident (MIA) prevention is a specific topic for preventing, planning and solving the crisis phenomena not only in Slovakia but also on the international level. In spite of the fact that in most EU countries, in the years 2008–2018 there was a decrease in the number of people injured in accidents at work and in fatal accidents in industrial processes, it is necessary to pay attention to this area [1, 2].

The risk management that consists of the risk assessment and risk treatment is one of the most important pillars of preventing the accident development [3]. The great amount of approaches, methods and techniques in this area make it often chaotic, however, the most substantial assumption is to understand the philosophy of assessing and managing the risks the how to implement it. The calculation mechanisms and formulae serve only as an aid for defining the risk and determining its acceptability or unacceptability. The objective of this chapter was the clarification of the procedures that will be understandable and usable [4–6].

This chapter deals with MIA prevention concerning only the SEVESO III companies. The under-threshold establishments are not taken into account.

The following information was taken into consideration for analysing the accidents:


The data collection process also utilised the semi-structured interviews with the employees of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Environment Agency. The databases collecting the data about the MIAs according to the classification life/health, property and environment were analysed for identifying the causes and effects.

In the framework of the case study, we utilised the on-site observations and subsequently the software for simulating the consequences and impacts.

#### **2. Industrial accident prevention**

The constant increasing of the technological progress brings also development of the industrial accidents more and more frequently. The industrial accidents belong to the anthropogenic phenomena whose occurrence can be determined with a certain probability. The need of its legal adaptation became inevitable in the 1980s.

Bahr says that the accident is an unplanned development of events that lead to undesirable injuries, losses of lives, to damaging the property and environment. He also declares that it is necessary to differentiate the so called near-miss – the nuclear accident Three Mile Island can serve here as an example. During this crisis phenomenon not that big amount of radioactivity penetrated to the environment that would have threatened the lives of the citizens, however, the investigation showed a lot of shortages that drew lessons from this near-miss [7].

Marvin Rausand says that during the recent decades a lot of large accidents have drawn attention of the general public to the need of increasing the awareness about the risks that are connected with the technological systems and activities. The industrial accidents also affected the stance of the competent authorities concerning the safety in this area. The companies themselves are also aware of the need of implementing the principles of an effective prevention in the enterprises especially in connection with the high financial costs and losses of lives in the case an accident develops. The **Table 1** brings examples of major accidents with hazardous substances (HS) [8].

#### *Risk Management in the Area of Major Industrial Accident Prevention in the EU… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98406*

In spite of the negative effects and impacts, these accidents give us precious information for improving the prevention effectiveness in this area.

The overview in the **Table 1** was created from a file including the accidents and it should serve as a reminder that safety must never be on the second place and also the risks with a low probability bring frequently serious impacts. Macza analyses some of these accidents and the responses and perception of the society to each of them in connection with the changes of the legal regulations and other interactions [11].

In the further text we will deal only with accidents in the chemical enterprises that utilise hazardous substances in their processes.

Ostrom says in his book that several types of the primary and secondary crisis phenomena can develop in the industrial operations working with hazardous substances. They can cause an accident with the following consequence:


The industrial accidents are connected especially with the uncontrolled leakage and spreading the hazardous substances that threat the life and health of people, damage the property and pollute the environment [13]. The hazardous substances causing the industrial accidents are of the chemical or radioactive origin and can come either from disrupting the stability of the stationary source of the hazardous substance (production of the equipment, warehouses, equipment using the hazardous substance in the process) or the mobile sources (cars or railway carriages determined for transporting the hazardous substances) [14].

In the EU framework there are different legal regulations for the nuclear and chemical premises that are subsequently transposed to the legal system of the member states. Just the development of the industrial accidents and investigating their causes aroused the efforts to adapt the given area through the legal regulations and thorough inspection in this field (see the **Table 2**).

The aforementioned accidents were the principal milestones for creating the safety standards of the industrial processes and application of the changes in the SEVESO Directive framework.

#### **2.1 Industrial accident prevention**

#### *2.1.1 Prevention of major industrial accidents in the EU*

#### *2.1.1.1 The legal environment in the area of prevention of major industrial accidents in the EU*

The afore-mentioned industrial accidents as well as a whole range of others showed the failure of the technology and operators that caused the death of a lot of


*Risk Management in the Area of Major Industrial Accident Prevention in the EU… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98406*


#### **Table 1.**

*The most famous industrial accidents worldwide – An overview [9, 10].*

people or the accident effects caused them durable consequences for their health and losses of the material values and the environment that can be of a long-term character but also irreversible. Therefore the number one issue is the prevention of such events and the implementation of the preventive measures in the industrial environment. The EU tries to regulate this environment and to determine the rules for the companies that are the most dangerous ones from the point of view of the hazardous substances concentration. The SEVESO Directive is such a tool – it has been amended several times and currently the SEVESO III Directive is valid.

The SEVESO III Directive creates the basic framework dealing with the prevention of and preparedness for overcoming the major industrial accidents of hazardous substances. Due to the rapid technological development and globalisation the updating process of this directive is under way in certain time intervals – from the SEVESO I to SEVESO III Directives. The overview of the most important updating of this directive is as follows:

