Industrial accidents are, thankfully, not a commonplace event. EMDAT lists only 38 such disasters in 2008, the worst of these being the mattress factory fire in Casablanca, Morrocco in which 50 people lost their lives.

In past however there have been a number of extremely devastating accidents:-

1984 Bhopal India - A faulty tank containing poisonous methyl isocyanate leaked at a Union Carbide plant and left nearly 3,000 people dead initially, and at least 15,000 from related illnesses.

1986 Chernobyl - A reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, near Pripyat in the Ukraine (then Russia), exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. 56 known deaths plus as many as 4,000 deaths from cancer in those exposed

1988 Piper Alpha - An explosion and resulting fire on a North Sea oil production platform killed 167 men. To date it is rated as the world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms both of lives lost and impact to industry.

To date in 2009 the worst accident is a case of industrial air pollution which resulted in 161 deaths in Jilin province in China.