The quantitative risk assessment of industrial facilities is based on integrated procedures to quantify human, environmental and economical losses related to relevant accidents. Accordingly, seismic risk analysis has to be integrated in order to obtain reliable results. In this work, some considerations regarding the intensity and probability of occurrence of earthquakes and the vulnerability of atmospheric storage tanks subjected to seismic actions are given. Structural vulnerability based on observational data has been processed in the form of "probit analysis", a simple and useful statistic tool. Suggestions concerning industrial seismic-related accidental scenarios are also given. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.