The world has seen some pretty horrific eco disasters in history. What is the cause of them? Well, human negligence regrettably. Sometimes though they are a result of unavoidable accidents. The most recent incident is the ongoing saga of the BP oil spill in American waters, which has now become the worst eco disaster in the USA’s history. BP have attempted to solve the problem but so far to no avail. As a result they have lost $45 billion already. The explosion in an oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in 11 workers losing their lives and 17 seriously injured. Current estimates of the amount of oil being discharged range from 12,000–100,000 barrels (500,000–4,200,000 US gallons; 1,900,000–16,000,000 litres) per day. In the following list we take a look back at 10 of the worst eco disasters in our history.
1. Burning Kuwait oil fields
Image source - Wikipedia
Saddam Hussein retaliated to a coalition in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War in apocalyptic fashion when he ordered the Iraqi army to blow up Kuwaiti oil fields. It took six long months and $12bn to stop the fires and repair the oil wells. What could not be saved though was the damage done to the country’s environment. Long-term damage was caused to the coral reefs off the coast, but more worryingly doctors reported on a rise in heart disease and cancer, which were brought on by the significant air pollution.
2. Baia Mare cyanide spill
Image source - Planetgreen
Accidents can have such horrible consequences. Take the story of Baia Mare as an example. An accidental cyanide spill in the city, located in north-west Romania, ended up killing over 1,200 river life in three countries. The water in the city became contaminated by the spill, which was caused by more than 100,000 cubic metres of leaked cyanide from a gold mine. The leakage spread to nearby rivers including the Danube and Tisza. Environmentalists later claimed that 80 per cent of Tisza’s marine life had been wiped out.
3. Chernobyl disaster
Image source - Wikipedia
A huge explosion at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 instantly killed 31 people. The damage did not simply end there though because highly toxic fumes were released across Europe. It has been said that the radiation was 100 times more dangerous than the atom bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were hit most by the Chernobyl disaster; more than 200,000 people had no choice but to relocate, but thousands of others were not so lucky and simply could not survive or were left tragically deformed. To this day, 24 years on, there are still restrictions on farming areas around Europe where radioactive material is believed to have landed.
4. Bhopal disaster
Image source - ENS-Newswire
Two years before the disaster of Chernobyl, a similar tragedy struck Bhopal, India. More than 40 tonnes of lethal gas leaked from a chemical plant and infected all of the local population. Over 3,000 people died as a result and a further 15,000 died from illnesses relating back to the disaster. Many people were left disfigured, blind, kidney or liver failures. Union Carbide, the company behind the leak, eventually paid out £470 million in compensation to the Indian government in 1989.
5. Amoco Cadiz oil spill
Image source - Wikipedia
At the time, in 1978, this oil spill was the worst in history. The supertanker that was known as Amoco Cadiz was ruined in a storm off the French coast, which resulted in the unavoidable leakage of 1.6m barrels of oil into the sea. The French Navy, with the assistance of the Royal Navy, gathered 30 ships to try and maintain the spill. They were unable to prevent the pollution of 200 miles of the Britanny coastline. Because of this, over 5,000 birds perished. It took a whole decade for the coastline to be given the all clear of any oil.
6. Aral Sea disappearance
Image source - Wikipedia
The United Nations have declared the disappearance of the Aral Sea as the worst man-made disaster of all time. Located in central Asia it used to be the world’s fourth largest inland water body. Now though it has shrunk down to just a quarter of its previous size in less than a century. The blame has fallen on the shoulders of the Soviet government who diverted the two main rivers that were feeding into it to irrigate cotton fields in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan instead.
7. Tokaimura nuclear plant accident
Image source - SMH
September 30th 1999 was the date of Japan’s worst nuclear accident ever. The incident happened at the nuclear plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. Three workers improperly mixed a uranium solution, which resulted in an instantaneous blue flash. One worker was knocked unconscious, while the others were left nauseous as their hands and faces burnt helplessly. Two died and hundreds of others were exposed to the high levels of radiation that was released.
8. The Exxon Valdez
Image source - Wikipedia
In March 1989 the pristine waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound were contaminated by 10.8 million gallons of oil when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef. The oil spread 500 miles from where the crash occurred, staining thousands of miles worth of coastline, and killing hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, seals, otters and other sea life. It took 11,000 people in 1,000 boats to clean up the spill. This was the worst eco disaster in the USA’s history until the recent BP oil spill.
9. Sevesco dioxin cloud
Image source - MSN News
An explosion in a northern Italy chemical plant in 1976 released a dangerously toxic white cloud of dioxin that settled in the town of Sevesco. Animals soon began to drop dead and four days later humans began to suffer from nausea, blurred vision, and among children especially, disfiguring sores of a skin disease called chloracne. Weeks later the whole town was evacuated. Today, a large park sits above two giant tanks which hold the remains of all the deceased animals, contaminated soil and parts of the destroyed factory.
10. Minamata disease
Image source - Wikipedia
The locals of Minamata, Japan noticed odd behaviour in animals around the area, particularly the cats. Household felines were prone to convulsions and many would leap into the sea to their deaths. People referred to the behaviour as “cat dancing disease.” It was not until 1956 when the first human case was identified. For three years people suffered convulsions, slurred speech, loss of motor functions and uncontrollable limb movements. The investigation soon revealed that large amounts of mercury and other metals were found in the fish, which made up the majority of the local diet. This poisoning came from waste dumped into Minamata Bay by Chisso Corp., a plastic manufacturer. Thousands of people have died from the disease over the following decades.
