making a mistake at work isn't usually a huge problem maybe you messed up a customer's order
or you forgot to input something into a spreadsheet chances are it was easy to fix
however there are some instances where a mistake ended up costing billions of dollars to fix
from the piper alpha oil rig disaster to the hanshin expressway collapse here are five of
the most expensive fails in history the piper alpha was an oil platform set up in the north sea
about 120 miles away from the coast of aberdeen scotland it initially began production in 1976
as an oil-only platform but over time gas production was added to its uses in 1988
disaster unfolded as a simple mistake led to the structure's untimely demise on july 6
1988 a pump's pressure safety valve was removed for regular maintenance it was temporarily sealed
with a disk cover and there were instructions made that stated not to switch the pump on under any
circumstances one shift ended and another began somehow the instructions disappeared and since the
on-duty custodian was busy no one was informed about the condition of that pump eventually
the pump was turned on resulting in an explosion the over pressure was too strong for the temporary
metal disc to withstand and gas audibly began leaking out at an incredibly high pressure gas
fires broke out with 167 men losing their lives the total cost of the disaster is estimated to
be around 1.7 billion euros making this one of the most expensive man-made catastrophes ever
an inquiry immediately began to look into the cause of the disaster to try to avoid
another catastrophe like it again a memorial depicting three oil workers was erected in
the rose garden at hazelhead park in aberdeen it's a heart-wrenching story
and one that could have been avoided with proper communication between the two shifts
on january 17 1995 a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the city of kobe japan the earthquake
only lasted for about 20 seconds but that was all it needed to devastate a city requiring
decades of repairs while numerous buildings were destroyed one of the most substantial
damages to occur was to the hanshin expressway this structure was the main transportation route
between kobe and osaka while the structure should have ordinarily survived such a quake
research that went on after the quake found that the expressway had an inadequate structural design
this stemmed from insufficient and prematurely terminated longitudinal reinforcement
insufficient sheer capacity and inadequate hoop anchorage the collapse of this structure made
headlines all over the globe many people were caught off guard believing such expressways to
be safe 10 spans of the expressway ended up getting knocked over it took over a year for
the structure to be rebuilt and it officially reopened on september 30th 1996. the estimated
total repair cost to get the hunching expressway back up and running was 4.6 billion dollars
it ended up only being a small fraction of the total cost the earthquake caused
when looking at the damage caused as a whole some estimates put the repairs at 200 billion
dollars but expressways can be rebuilt the 6434 individuals who lost their lives nearly 4
600 of them in kobe alone can never come back but the region was resilient for the
three months following the earthquake 1.2 million people volunteered as part of the relief efforts
in november of 2002 the oil tanker mv prestige was carrying 77 000 tons of heavy fuel oil in the
sea when things took an unexpected turn the 26 year old vessel got caught up in a storm
and it burst the tank on november 13th off the coast of galicia spain the vessel tried to dock
to try and mitigate some of the damage but the spanish french and portuguese governments
all refused on november 19th the vessel sank completely about 130 miles off the coast
in total it's estimated that it spilled 17.8 million gallons of oil into the sea this ended
up polluting thousands of miles of coastline and over 1 000 beaches on the spanish french and
portuguese coast ended up suffering it became the largest environmental disaster in the history of
spain and portugal with the amount of heavy fuel oil exceeding that of the exxon valdez incident
in 2013 a court ruling came down that put the overall cost of the disaster at 368 million euros
which comes out to about 494 million us dollars following the disaster the captain of the vessel
was arrested however in 2013 three high court judges found that it was impossible to create
any kind of criminal responsibility for anyone on board the ship at the time of the disaster
the captain was however found guilty of disobeying government authorities who wanted him to take the
tanker as far away from the coast as possible at 78 years old the captain was given a nine month
suspended sentence after an investigation it was determined that the vessel was structurally
deficient and should never have been out to sea in the first place lake payner was a lake located
in louisiana it had a maximum depth of 200 feet making it the deepest lake in the entire state
for many years it was a popular destination for sportsmen until one fateful day in november 1980.
on that day an exploratory drilling company that operated on the lake accidentally drilled into
a salt mine owned by the diamond crystal salt company it wasn't long until the entire mine
started to fill with water the ensuing sinkhole swallowed the entire drilling platform including
11 barges that were holding supplies for the drilling operation it also took with it numerous
trees 65 acres of local terrain and a tugboat so much water was removed from the lake bed that the
flow of the del cambre canal was reversed this caused salt water from the gulf of mexico to
instead flow into what used to be a dry lake bed fortunately all 55 employees who were in the mine
at the time of the disaster were able to get out safely no human lives were lost in the aftermath
of the sinkhole texaco and the drilling contractor wilson brothers had to pay 32 million dollars to
diamond crystal they also had to pay an additional 12.8 million dollars to a nearby plant nursery and
botanical garden for out-of-court settlements to compensate for damage the sinkhole caused in
addition to the costs the event also permanently impacted the local ecosystem it changed the lake
from freshwater to salt water it also increased the overall depth at the deepest point of the lake
one of the most famous man-made disasters in history occurred on saturday april 26 1986
on this day a safety test was being performed on the rbmk type nuclear reactor at the chernobyl
nuclear power plant near the city of pripyat the test was supposed to provide a simulation of an
electrical power outage to help with the formation of a safety procedure on how to maintain reactor
cooling water circulation until the backup generators could offer power during this test
there was a gap of roughly one minute that caused the nuclear reactor core to overheat it
was expected that the residual rotational energy of the turbine generator would offer sufficient
power to cover this lapse the power unexpectedly dropped to a near zero level operators could only
restore partial test power which put the reactor in an unstable condition at the time the operators
didn't know of the risk so they continued with the test once the test finished the operators
triggered a reactor shutdown a combination of design flaws as well as the unstable conditions
resulted in a nuclear chain reaction roughly 49 000 individuals had to be evacuated from the area
most of them from the nearby town of pripyat the exclusion zone had to be expanded which resulted
in an additional 68 000 people being evacuated two members of the reactor operating staff were
killed in the reactor explosion 134 people had to be hospitalized due to acute radiation syndrome
and out of those people 28 died in the days and months following the meltdown
an additional 14 suspected radiation-induced deaths from cancer followed in the next decade the
chernobyl disaster remains the worst nuclear power plant accident to occur in history both in terms
of casualties and cost the initial cost for the cleanup efforts were estimated to be at 18 billion
soviet rubles which would be about 68 billion u.s dollars adjusted for inflation and the costs are
still ongoing it's estimated that between five and seven percent of government spending in ukraine
is still related to chernobyl recovery activities much of these costs come down to the payments
of social benefits to about 7 million people throughout ukraine belarus and russia are there
any other man-made disasters you'd like to see us do a video about in the future let us know in
the comments otherwise be sure to click the link on screen to check out our video of the 5 worst
man-made disasters in history as always thanks for watching and be sure to tune in next time