The urban environment can be scary.
While the dangers of the outdoors and wilderness
survival are well publicized, city planners,
businesses and the public alike struggle with
how to mitigate the dangers with which the
urban environment is fraught.
Let us now explore the chilling survival dangers
that may face us vulnerable humans in the
wild, wild world that is the city.
Eerily, some of the worst hazards come from
attempts at charity, efficiency, or green
innovation.
10.
Monster Icicles
It is less well known than it should be that
urban environments juxtapose walking areas
for pedestrians with perfect places for icicles
to drop from great heights.
This can be deadly.
In cities with cold winter climates, sufficient
precipitation and the presence of tall buildings,
such as St. Petersburg, Russia or New York,
USA, a perfect storm exists that has, tragically,
caused numerous injuries and in some cities,
repeated fatalities.
Environmental sustainability measures centered
on making buildings more energy efficient
have perversely created increased danger to
the public in certain cases.
A 2010 article in the International Journal
on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat describes
how buildings built to be energy efficient
(or renovated to be energy efficient) release
less heat, saving energy but dramatically
increasing the accumulation of potentially
dangerous ice formations on the outside of
skyscrapers.
When temperatures rise, ice chunks fall to
the city streets below.
Icicles forming as water drips down the edges
of buildings has caused tragic deaths, most
notably in St. Petersburg, Russia where in
a single year (2010) a shocking five people
died and 150 were injured after being hit
by huge falling icicles or ice chunks.
Senseless carnage!
Novosibirsk, the third most populated city
in Russia, also saw a cold tragedy toward
winter’s end in 2015 when a 20-year-old
woman was killed by ice falling 14 stories
from a canopy.
Blame has been placed on officials for failing
to ensure dangerous ice was removed.
9.
Killer Dumpsters
Dumpster diving is a popular activity for
the homeless, those trying to save a few dollars,
or certain “freegans” trying to make a
political or economic statement about thrown
away food.
Yet another kind of dumpster diving (for dumpster
contents that are not garbage) have claimed
several lives, prompting calls for a ban.
These are the clothing donation bins that
have caused seven deaths Canada-wide since
2015.
The complicated mechanism of these bins, designed
to prevent theft can crush people between
metal plates aided by their own body weight
as they reach into the bins in an attempt
to retrieve clothing.
The problem is worst in Canada, for reasons
still in question, but deaths have occurred
elsewhere globally but in fewer numbers.
People have been found dead in clothing donation
bins, while in other cases, screams were heard
but the victim died of crushing and suffocation
before they could be helped.
For example, help came too late to save one
woman whose vehicle was still running beside
a bin that she entered at night, only to get
caught up and be left hanging from broken
limbs.
Efforts to curb the deaths include outright
bans or voluntary removals of bins in certain
jurisdictions, along with engineering team
efforts to design a safer system.
8.
Stray Bullet Strikes
Stray bullets can arise from surprising sources
and travel in the strangest trajectories,
killing people in cities who had nothing to
do with either celebrations, gang violence,
or warfare.
Bullets travel farther than people commonly
understand, less accurately than often believed,
and can ricochet or achieve a lethal potential
falling in an arc after being fired into the
air.
A growing number of people in the United States
have lost their lives when a bullet entered
their home or hit them in the street.
Just one Baltimore street saw a three-year-old
killed and then a nine-year-old girl injured
by stray bullets in two separate incidents.
These cases of accidental urban shootings
are examples of a growing problem.
Between March 2008 and February 2009, over
300 people were hit by stray bullets in the
United States.
A variety of demographics were represented
in an analysis of those hit, and those who
were identified as responsible in stray bullet
cases.
Shockingly, children formed 30 percent of
the victims.
The urban threat is not primarily a street
issue, as 68 percent of victims were struck
indoors, including 40 percent being accidentally
shot in their own homes.
There is also an urgent need to stop the celebratory
firing of live rounds at events such as New
Years around the world.
Senseless fatalities, such as the 2014 deaths
of two children in the Philippines when bullets
fired to celebrate New Years struck them in
their home, serve as an example.
7.
Airplane Crashes
Urban airplane crashes kill more people than
you would think.
Look out: the sky is not falling, but its
contents just might.
We might think of aircraft travel as safe,
but when accidents happen, they are notably
catastrophic a lot of the time.
Furthermore, those on the ground are at risk,
especially in cities.
Tall buildings present easily struck obstacles,
while lower buildings and roads may be hit
if a runway is missed.
Global aviation disaster records show around
200 crashes that caused fatalities on the
ground.
The single worst ground fatality event in
aviation history resulting from an accident
was the crash of an Air Africa Antonov-An-32B
into a street market in the Democratic Republic
of Congo that killed at least 225 and injured.
In 1992, a notable disaster took place when
approximately 100 people in an apartment building
in Amsterdam lost their lives as an airliner
flew into the building, causing an immense
fireball.
Terrorism caused the most serious incidents,
the 9/11 terrorist attacks killing more than
2,500 people on the ground.
Large aircraft are also known to shed heavy
parts, but a more common danger comes from
small planes crashing in suburbs, such as
one recent case in Southern California where
four people in a house died when an 8-seater
Cessna broke up in mid-air and caused the
house to explode into a fiery mass upon impact.
6.
Accidental Drug Exposures
The use of illegal “recreational” drugs
presents significant risks to users.
However, as prohibited street drugs get more
potent and deadly, the potential for collateral
damage in urban areas to non-users rises.
The appearance of fentanyl as an illegal substance
often used to cut less potent drugs poses
an extreme threat to law enforcement and the
public.
An increasingly abused substance on the streets
that is of medical origin, fentanyl often
comes in a fine powder.
If inhaled, even a tiny amount of this drug
(that is around 50 times stronger than most
forms of heroin) may dangerously inhibit respiratory
function, easily causing death.
In one case, first responders assisting an
overdose victim themselves experienced symptoms
of an overdose, prompting emergency management
authorities to highlight the risks of accidental
exposure.
If this was not enough, another substance
originating from fentanyl, carfentanil, is
around 100 times more potent than regular
fentanyl.
Terrifying!
In addition to the growing threat caused by
these rogue opioids proliferating in world
cities, drug use poses other threats.
Discarded needles are becoming ubiquitous,
showing up in garbage cans, at bus stops,
and in playgrounds, parks, and even townhouse
common grounds.
Accidental sticking with discarded needles
may lead to exposure to bloodborne diseases
if accidentally touched in a way that the
skin of the unwitting handler is broken.
Means of exposure include handling garbage,
walking in grass, or picking up clothing in
which a needle is present.
5.
Extreme Smog
Major urban centres like Los Angeles, Beijing,
and London continue to provoke health conditions
and contain significant quantities of toxic
smog.
Extreme incidents involving smog have marked
some of the low points of urban history, the
London Killer Fog of 1952 being one of the
most notorious examples.
The fog only lasted five days, but the chemical
reaction between sulfur dioxide, natural fog,
and nitrogen dioxide, creating highly corrosive
sulfuric acid fumes in the city.
Poisoned badly, 12,000 people died, while
150,000 were so sick they required hospitalization.
By 1956, the Clean Air Act was passed to get
control of the deadly risks of urban coal
burning.
Despite the improvements, London today still
has air that has become comparable to New
Delhi or Beijing, two large cities known for
their frequent air quality advisories.
London’s problem with nitrogen dioxide continues,
exacerbated by sunlight, which produces ozone
pollution.
Cities such as New Delhi, however, suffer
from worse particulate pollution, yet the
levels of potentially life-shortening nitrogen
dioxide in London are significantly worse
than conditions in a city as large as New
York, putting a strain on health services.
Air pollution in China causes around 1.1 million
premature deaths annually, part of a constellation
of problems that prompted Premier of the State
Council Li Keqiang to declare “war on pollution”
in China, with the intention of “making
our skies blue again.”
Efforts are focused on reducing steel production
and coal-fired energy generation, which are
key polluters.
4.
Freak Urban Floods
Cities are often built in low-lying areas,
while the removal of vegetation and construction
beside watercourses in urban areas exacerbates
flooding.
Urban floods are especially dangerous due
to the presence of electrical wires, with
electrocution a noteworthy result of certain
urban floods.
Even in areas that might be thought of as
being more dry, flash floods can pose an extraordinary
risk in urban locales.
In the large Saudi Arabian city Jeddah, 2009
and 2011 saw floods roar through the desert
city, killing over 100 people.
A lack of proper drainage and flood absorbing
vegetation presents a challenge that must
be addressed through better installation of
natural infrastructure such as constructed
wetlands and drains to slow and absorb floodwaters.
Furthermore, urban industry poses the threat
of some very strange floods.
Eight deaths resulted when thousands of gallons
of beer were accidentally released into the
streets in the “London Beer Flood” of
1814, while the “Great Boston Molasses Flood”
in the United States in 1919 killed 21 people
and injured 150, when a huge tank full of
molasses broke and let out a wave of molasses
15 feet tall that rushed through streets and
buildings, creating a half mile long swathe
of destruction and death as people were trapped
and drowned in the sticky substance.
3.
Infrastructure Failures
We typically trust bridges, power pylons,
overpasses, and roads to be well constructed.
But a surprising number of deaths take place
in cities around the world when the stress
of everyday use does not match up to engineering
projections and design provisions.
Infrastructure collapses in developing countries
or political jurisdictions without sufficient
engineering codes are expected, but it may
surprise people how many disasters have occurred
in jurisdictions where infrastructure is thought
to be quality and safe.
Between 1989 and 2000, more than 500 bridge
failure disasters occurred in the United States!
It is often not the result of an earthquakes,
but floods or the negligence of a single motorist
colliding with critical bridge support structures
that sets off a collapse.
Other times, engineering mistakes fail to
take into account the enormous cumulative
load from traffic, settling, and torsion or
settling forces, leading to gradual failure
or a sudden, catastrophic collapse.
Collapses of overpasses above traffic are
also some of the worst types of infrastructure
collapse risks in cities.
So, when you are traveling on a bridge, or
below underpasses, you might want to think
about the merits of not getting stuck under
an overpass or on a bridge that possibly leads
nowhere.
2.
Asbestos Exposure
Urban exploring, where enthusiasts often illicitly
traverse old factories, office towers, and
tunnels, enjoys popularity but it can be very
risky due to the chance of encountering asbestos.
Asbestos, once welcomed as a problem solving
“wonder material” with its fireproof insulator
properties, is proof that the worst hazards
are not always man-made, but natural in origin.
Massive quantities of asbestos were once incorporated
into urban structures of all kinds.
Asbestos formed of minute, dangerous fibers
can get into the lungs, where they cause serious
inflammation and, eventually, lung cancer.
In the urban environment, almost any older
building could be a dangerous storehouse of
asbestos fibers.
Even careful acts of urban exploration may
cause ceilings, walls, stairwells, or old
insulation panels to give way, releasing asbestos.
No wonder asbestos exposure constitutes the
number one threat to the urban explorer, according
to Jason Robinson, who founded the Ohio Exploration
Society.
Not only urban explorers, but renovators and
construction workers are confounded by the
asbestos threat.
Many urban construction projects have the
potential to unleash massive quantities of
asbestos when past construction work is disturbed.
Dealing with asbestos is a liability but also
a significant business activity, with workers
suiting up until they resemble astronauts
in a bid to get rid of the danger.
1.
Gas Leaks & Carbon Monoxide
Colorless, odorless, and hard to notice, carbon
monoxide remains an insidious and quick killer
responsible for numerous deaths from small
and large scale equipment failures and also
installation mistakes.
The substance is a dangerous, but formed of
two completely harmless substances that make
up your food, your body, and the air around
you, albeit in a different molecular order.
One molecule of carbon binds to one molecule
of oxygen in a byproduct of certain combustion
reactions, but the danger is much greater
than the sum of the parts.
Carbon monoxide is capable of physically replacing
the oxygen in your bloodstream.
While taking the place of oxygen, this imposter
chemical fails to provide the life sustaining
support that oxygen lends.
Eerily, the chemical has no taste, smell or
color and is often not detected until death
results, particularly if the victim is asleep.
Many deaths have resulted from blocked chimneys,
use of fuel burning machines indoors, or leaving
a car running in an enclosed space.
A number of deaths result every year, while
lower levels of poisoning that cause headaches,
nausea, and dizziness — or even seizures
— may be misdiagnosed.
Maintenance of equipment and avoidance of
unsafe practices, followed by installation
of monitors, are key ways to avoid fatal incidents.
