Most non-water floods (excluding mudflows, oil spills, or volcanic lahars) involve storage facilities suddenly releasing liquids, or industrial retaining reservoirs releasing toxic waste.
Storage facility incidents usually cover a small area but can be catastrophic in cities.
For example, a molasses tank failure in 1919 led to the Great Molasses Flood that killed 21 people in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.[1] Industrial retaining reservoirs are often used to store toxic waste, and when they fail they can flood a large area, causing physical and environmental damage.
The 2010 failure of a reservoir at the Ajka alumina plant in Hungary flooded a small town and killed several, while the cleanup from the 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant spill in Tennessee, U.S. took several years and killed at least 40 workers involved.