Panic and Crowd Disaster in Underground Space

Abstract

In this paper panic and crowd disaster are discussed. In order to prevent heavy casualties in an underground space, it is crucial to determine whether panic escape behavior as a collective phenomenon would occur at the time of an earthquake, flood, and fire, etc. in such a space.

There has yet to be an occurrence of collective panic in an underground space. Panic escape behavior and crowd disaster have the characteristic that despite the low rate of incidence they may cause many casualties, once they happen. Therefore, it is crucial that the measures are taken against panic and crowd surge in the underground in the urban area, although they never occurred in the past.