Abstract
Natural disasters can cause several accidents affecting the integrity of industrial facilities and lifelines, the so- called natural-technological accidents or simply Na-Techs. Amongst several volcanic hazards, lava flows appear less dangerous for human life than other phenomena and their impact on structures, traffic and communication are even also more manageable, because the slow movement of these streams allows mitigation strategies to be employed. Nevertheless, in 2002 two Italian newspapers reported about an explosion due to a boiling liquid expansion inside a civil tank (BLEVE), which was triggered by thermal radiation produced by a lava flow, during an effusive eruption of Mt. Etna. BLEVEs are amongst the most severe accidents that could occur in chemical and process industry as well as in the storage of hazardous materials; as an example the result of the previous mentioned explosion was a number of 32 injured people. This accident highlighted a lack of these scenarios reported in the local emergency plans. To allow improving the emergency management, the present work compares the potential damage scenarios associated with different liquid tanks (containing water and fuel) used in civil activities and triggered by lava inundation.
