As the saying goes, "accidents can happen at any time," and we all experience them from time to time.
Whether it's bumping your toe and knocking over a Chinese vase or having a chain collision on the A2, accidents are always unexpected and unintentional.
Either way, the story ends with something being lost or damaged and the damage having to be repaired. Usually with money...
But the price of a new porcelain cup for a neighbor is very different from the compensation price for 20 fully loaded trucks. And it could be a lot worse.
How bad could it be, is the theme of this piece. Below are the top ten most expensive accidents of all time.
After reading this, you'll think that the porcelain cup isn't so bad after all. Prices are in dollars.
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The Titanic, $150 Million
One of the most famous accidents in history, the Titanic, is only number 10 on this list.
More than 1,500 people died, but we are only talking about material costs here.
Because Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, it never had a chance to recover its production costs.
Therefore, there was no depreciation, and the amount of damage caused by accident is the same as the cost of Titanic's production.
The price at the time was $7 million, which in today's terms is $150 million.
By comparison, most supercars cost around a million yen, so that's the value of 150 Ferraris! 150 Ferraris sunk in one night...
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Tanker truck through the guardrail, $358 million
In 2004, a truck full of fuel collided with a car. Tragic in itself, but the accident did not happen alone. The collision happened in the middle of a bridge in Germany (Wiehltal)!
The crash barriers could not support the truck, so it tipped over from the bridge, and about 30 meters later, it hit the ground and exploded.
As well as losing the car, the truck, and its load, the explosion and fire caused millions in damage to the bridge.
With temporary repairs and eventual bridge replacement, the disaster will cost a combined total of just under $360 million.to Crash, $500 Million
If, after hearing this story, you no longer trust your car and decide to use public transport, please bear the following in mind On 12 September 2008, two trains collided in Los Angeles.
In addition to the 25 people who died, there was, of course, a huge amount of damage. On top of that, because it happened in the USA, everything and everyone can be sued.
When these costs are added together, it is estimated that this accident was worth $500 million.
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B-2 Bomber Crash, $1.4 Billion
We leave personal transport behind for the time being and switch to the army. The scale of prices jumps up, and at number 7 is the first accident to exceed a billion.
The B-2 bomber, an aircraft designed to drop bombs, crashed in Guam in 2008 shortly after take-off.
This is the most expensive plane crash ever, so if you are a frequent flyer, rest assured, there will be no more plane crashes shortly!
Fortunately, the pilots died in this accident, but the plane itself was destroyed. It was a bomber of which only 21 were built in the world! So now only 20...
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Exxon Valdez, $2.5 Billion
It was a black day in history on 24 March 1989 when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince Williams Sound, spilling between 41,000 and 119,000 cubic meters of oil.
Unfortunately, this will not go down as the biggest oil spill in history, but it was an expensive joke. This was mainly because it occurred in a remote area where clean-up crews could not reach.
Many plants and animals were affected, and the post-accident clean-up cost about $2.5 billion.
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The Piper Alpha Oil Platform, $3.4 Billion
We're still in the oil business. Piper Alpha's rig went up in flames on 6 July 1988, a year before the Exxon Valdez.
There were 100 safety valves routinely checked by technicians, and they had all been approved. However, there was only one valve that did not reset properly, which was enough for us.
An accident is just around the corner. Once the largest oil-producing nation, the accident has left the world 167 poorer and a loss of $3.4 billion.
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the Challenger explosion, $5.5 billion
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded exactly 73 seconds after take-off (NASA has recorded this!). On 28 January 1986, this famous astronaut exploded before leaving the Earth.
The total cost of this accident, including the cost of the Space Shuttle itself, its replacement, and the cost of research to determine the cause, equates to $5.5 billion today.
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Prestige Oil Spill, $12 Billion
After talking about space for a while, we return to the oil business: at the end of 2002, a storm off the coast of Spain (Galicia) sank the oil tanker Prestige, with 77,000 tonnes of oil in its cargo.
The ship captain foresaw the disaster in advance and went to the coast to ask for help.
However, as both the French and Spanish authorities ordered him to leave the coast, the captain had no choice but to sea. And it was there that she finally sank.
Total cost: $12 billion.
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Space Shuttle Columbia, $13 Billion
As this second space accident shows, space travel is an expensive business: the Columbia, built-in 1978 at $2 billion, crashed in Texas in 2003, 16 days after something rattled on its wings during take-off.
More than half a billion dollars was spent to investigate the cause of this accident.
All in all, the cost to NASA of this accident was about 13 billion yen. That's expensive. But it's not that hard...
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Chernobyl, priceless
On 26 April 1986, the nuclear power station at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded. About 50% of the whole of Ukraine has been contaminated in one way or another.
More than 200,000 people lost their homes, and about 1.7 million people were affected in some way.
There have also been direct deaths from radiation; about 125,000 people have died.
The combined cost of cleaning up, relocating, and compensating the victims has been about $200 billion.
This is more than 15 times the amount of the most expensive space crashes.
But apart from that... Isn't a human life priceless?
Children are still being born with deformities as a result of this disaster... Thousands of families have lost one or more relatives.
If you calculate that in dollars, no country in the world, all countries combined, will be able to pay for it!
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