Engineering hazards occur when structures used by people fail or the materials used in their construction prove to be hazardous . This history of construction has many examples of hazards associated with structures including bridge failures such as the Tay Bridge disaster caused by under-design , the Silver Bridge collapse caused by corrosion attack or the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge caused by aerodynamic flutter of the deck . Failure of dams was not infrequent during the Victorian era , such as the Dale Dyke dam failure in Sheffield , England in 1864 , causing the Great Sheffield Flood , which killed at least 240 people . In 1889 , the failure of the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River near Johnstown , Pennsylvania , produced the Johnstown Flood , which killed over 2,200 . Other failures include balcony collapses , aerial walkway collapses such as the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City in 1981 , and building collapses such as that of the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 during the September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Anthropogenic hazard