The chapter deals with catastrophic events associated with damage to the economy and environment and which are responsible for the death or reduction of people's safety. To cover this, some accidents in the industry other than nuclear, like those with Liberty ships and the Comet airplanes, are presented. Examples of the problems in the nuclear power plants, mainly due to fatigue and stress corrosion cracking, are introduced. Particularly, it is mentioned some preventive measures in the Brazilian plants, which were taken to avoid these problems. The safe-life, fail-safe, and damage-tolerant approaches, originated in the aeronautical industry, are briefly described.