An ‘Act of God’ is a legal term for “events outside of human control for which no one can be held responsible and which cannot be prevented”.
We sometimes hear the expression banded around the tunnelling world following such misfortunes as a collapse. More frequently the old classic ‘unforeseen ground conditions’ is put in the frame, but in many ways they can be interpreted as meaning much the same thing, i.e. “it wasn’t our fault, we couldn’t have seen it coming so we couldn’t have done anything about it!”
It’s understandable in many ways, considering the levels of penalties involved in today’s engineering climate, companies can be broken in such contractual situations. But it is also a rather unwise defence when looking at the bigger picture.
The truth is, this denial of accountability really isn’t the way to make our industry look credible to the untrained observer, potential insurer, or inexperienced client.
We’ve read and researched numerous collapse reports here at T&TI, and frequently, although not exclusively, such events have been far from unforeseeable, whether it be anything from poor attention to monitoring information, to a lack of a robust design in the temporary works.
The truth is, when something goes wrong, an immediate and thorough investigation must be carried out, the reasons for the event catalogued for future reference, and if there is accountability, then unfortunately those in the spotlight should be made accountable. If such investigations do show that the events were unforeseeable and unavoidable then so be it, but this must not be used as a cover for possible lapses in good engineering practice.
Although this ‘accountability’ may sound harsh, obviously nobody wants accidents to happen, the reason we need to do this is simple.
We cannot propagate the notion that in some situations we have little or even no control over what happens during tunnel construction, especially if the consequences are significant damage to property, or in the absolute worse case, the loss of life.
If the aviation industry blamed ‘unforeseen air conditions’ every time a plane crashed, it wouldn’t be long before people would lose faith in flying. So why would we expect people to keep faith in an underground industry plagued by these so called ‘unforeseen ground conditions’?
Tris Thomas
Tris
