Continuing technological and social development of the world creates enormous demand for energy, chemicals, commodities, and food. This leads to an increase in the size and complexity of processing plants. This has inevitably created new hazards and increased risk that must not be compromised with mere economic benefits; instead they are required to be prevented and mitigated. Unfortunately this is not the case as accidents keep occurring with different levels of severity. Khan and Abbasi (1999a) conducted a comprehensive study on major process accidents that occurred during 1926–1977 and recommended the need for accident forecasting, consequence assessment, and development of emergency management plans. The report of Marsh Energy Practices listed 100 largest property damage losses that have occurred in hydrocarbon processing industries from 1970 to 2011 (Marsh, 2012). There are a number of databases maintaining the record of accidents which occurred in process industries and their respective consequences. Among them, the Major Hazard Incident Data Service (MHIDAS), Major Accident Reporting System (MARS), Process Safety Incident Database (PSIC), Failure and Accident Technical Information System (FACTS) and World Offshore Accident Database (WOAD) are the most recognized and widely used databases. Pondicherry University Process-industry Accident Database (PUPAD) is a comprehensive open-source database to assist past accident analysis (Tauseef et al., 2011). In the present work, authors performed a brief analysis of notable past process accidents that occurred during the last two decades using the accident information available in open literature including from the United States Chemical Safety Board (Marsh, 2012 and Khan and Abbasi, 1999a). This will help to develop an overall view of accident trends and their consequences (property and production loss). Fig. 1 is the plot developed using the information available in the above mentioned resources. It is observed that the accident trend has not followed a uniform pattern. Both accident occurrences and their consequences show a non-uniform fluctuation. This non-uniform trend confirms the uncertain and unpredictable behavior of accidents and their consequence and reinforces the need of efficient and effective process safety and risk management to implement preventive and mitigating safety measures to reduce both the likelihood and severity of industrial accidents.