People Are Remembering The Biggest Catastrophic Failures Of Various Human-Made Devices And Here're 30 Of The Most Devastating Pics

Another peculiar incident happened a year ago at a Swiss chocolate factory where, due to internal malfunction, it sent out a plume of cocoa 'snow.' Fine particles dusted the ground around Lindt & Spruengli factory in town of Olten after the ventilation system stopped functioning properly.

The area where the malfunction happened was in charge of making roasted cocoa nibs. These nibs are fragments of crushed cocoa beans, which are the basis of chocolate. Due to the strong winds, the powder spread around the factory, covering it in fine cocoa dust.

A year ago, a giant whale sculpture became a national hero in The Netherlands for stopping a train that overran the tracks. Luckily, the driver of the train in Rotterdam city escaped serious injury as the train crashed through barriers at the final station of De Akkers in Spijkenisse, near the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. The accident occurred on a raised platform, ten meters (30 feet) off the ground, where the carriage could have easily plummeted into the water below.

Maarten Struijs, the architect who designed the whale sculpture, expressed his astonishment and relief that the structure had played a life-saving role. “I'm surprised it's so strong," he told a Dutch news outlet. "If plastic has been standing for 20 years, you don't expect it to hold a metro carriage."

When it comes to the term “catastrophic failure” itself, it refers to a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading system failure. These failures are usually investigated with the methods of forensic engineering. It aims to isolate the cause or causes of failure.