When an industry has no plan for its waste, it dumps it wherever is convenient, and that pile can end up doing the work of a dam without any of a dam's engineering. With no overflow and no drains, it holds back water until it suddenly fails. The danger comes from something no one ever decided to build.
A disaster can be preventable by a simple measure, like a drain ditch, and still go unbuilt because the fix means pausing output for a few weeks. Managers are promoted for keeping production up, so a small, certain loss of output wins out over a large but uncertain risk to others.
A company can defend a dangerous practice by saying it simply followed the customary way of doing things. That defence falls apart if the same company built properly engineered versions elsewhere, because this shows it knew what safe looked like and chose not to do it here.
Blaming a catastrophe on nature or God turns a human choice into fate and lets the responsible party off the hook. Survivors can see through this, as can the company's own lawyers in private. A passing safety inspection days before the collapse shows that official approval is no proof against human-made disaster.
Survivors can be compensated not only for lost homes and lives but for lasting mental damage, even those who escaped unhurt. Ordinary triggers, like rain on a roof, bring the terror back. A defence that dismisses this as exaggeration loses ground once witnesses break down in front of the judge.