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http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/02/15/3135546.htm


The worst eco-catastrophes of all time
By John Pickrell
ABC Environment | 15 Feb 2011


The Gulf War led to unprecendented pollution as the retreating Iraqi army set fire to oil wells and pumped oil into the ocean.


The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is just the latest in a long list of mega-disasters that have had a seriously negative impact on the planet. From military action to nuclear meltdowns, here are some of the worst examples.

ON 20 APRIL 2010 a huge build up of methane forced itself up a pipeline to BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a massive explosion that killed 11 people and began a catastrophe that eventually saw four million barrels of oil spewed out into the open ocean. To people in the US, the 24-7 media coverage made it seem like an environmental catastrophe on an unprecedented scale, but there's been plenty worse than that. Here's our rundown of some of the worst eco-catastrophes ever to have been unleashed.
1. Worst industrial accident: Bhopal gas leak (1986)

On the night of 3 December 1984, 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas leaked out of a pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal - in terms of human tragedy, it was the worst industrial accident of all time. As the gas swept through impoverished neighbourhoods, it decimated livestock, stripped vegetation and killed 4,000 people. Over the following weeks and years the total death toll climbed to at least 15,000; in all, 500,000 people were affected, including many children later born with birth defects. Astoundingly, Union Carbide, the US owner of the plant, got away with paying just US$470 million in compensation in a 1989 settlement (in comparison BP may be liable for up to US$100 billion for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill).

"Many organisations struggled for years to bring Union Carbide to account," says Steve Campbell, head of campaigns at Greenpeace Australia Pacific. "This disaster is a stark reminder that close scrutiny of corporations is critical and that people and the environment must be protected from hazardous processes and substances."

Other major industrial accidents include Japan's Minamata disaster, where toxic levels of mercury from a plastics factory were dumped over decades causing deformities and poisoning in more than 2,000 people; and Italy's 1976 Seveso disaster which saw a spike in human cancer rates and led to the slaughter of 70,000 livestock to prevent dioxins getting into the food chain.
2. Worst aftermath of war: Vietnam War (1960s)

Between 1961 and 1971 the US military doused defoliants, including Agent Orange, onto the rainforests of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was part of strategy to deny the Vietcong both forest cover and food in the form of rice crops. A 2003 study in the journal Nature estimated that the total volume of defoliants used came to around 77 million litres, and that carcinogenic dioxin levels in them were twice what had previously been estimated. In all around 10 per cent of the entire area of South Vietnam was sprayed, destroying many millions of hectares of vegetation and 14 per cent of the rainforest. On top of untold ecological damage, problems such as cancer and birth defects subsequently emerged both in the Vietnamese population and in US and Australian servicemen and their children.

Another war-related ecological disaster was created when Iraqi soldiers detonated huge numbers of oil wells in Kuwait in 1991 (see below). It took six months to put out all the fires; in total a 1.5 billion tonnes oil were spilled, much of which pooled into 300 oil 'lakes' in the desert covering 50 square kilometres.
3. Worst nuclear accident: Chernobyl (1986)

On 26 April 1986 the number four reactor at a power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded, vaporising 50 tonnes of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Monitoring stations in Norway, Finland and Sweden soon began to report a spike in radiation, but it would be another two days before the Soviet Union admitted the truth. A radioactive cloud spread across northern Europe and 135,000 people were later evacuated and resettled from the immediate surrounding area. Around 50 people were killed and it remains the only nuclear accident with direct radiation-related fatalities. Another 9,000 cancer deaths were predicted, but although thyroid cancers have been common, few have cases have resulted in death. Though it's now possible to take tours to Chernobyl, a 30 km exclusion zone still exists around the site and it remains one of the most radioactive spots on Earth.

Similar accidents at nuclear power plants, though on much smaller scales, occurred at Windscale (fire) in England in 1957 and Three Mile Island (meltdown) in Pennsylvania, US in 1979.

"Nuclear is still a highly unsafe form of energy," says Greenpeace's Steve Campbell. "There's still no solution to radioactive waste, and it remains a threat for millennia. However, we now have proven and reliable energy alternatives to take its place, such as wind solar and geothermal."
4. Worst marine oil spill: Gulf War (1991)

Marine oil spills are much more devastating than those on land, as they spread rapidly, covering vast areas, and are difficult to clean up. Following the invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the retreating Iraqi Armed Guard purposely pumped around eight million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf in an attempt to prevent US marines from making landfall - it was the largest ever oil spill at sea, with a 12-cm deep slick covering an area 162km by 67km across.

1979's Ixtoc I exploratory well oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico spilt around three million barrels, slightly less than the Deepwater Horizon spill, but it went on for 10 months, creating a persistent slick that covered half of the Texan coastline and washed up on the breeding beaches of the endangered Kemp's Ridley turtle.
5. Biggest US atomic bomb: Castle Bravo (1954)

On 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively, US President Harry Truman made the difficult decision to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - somewhere between 150,000 and 246,000 people were killed, around half within 24 hours.

Though these are the most famous atomic detonations, and those that resulted in the greatest loss of life, size-wise they pale in comparison to the scale of subsequent test detonations.

US nuclear tests in the Pacific wasted coral atolls or entire islands. The Castle Bravo detonation of a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1954 was 1,000 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb and wreaked havoc on surrounding islands due to its scale and high winds. "The most powerful bomb in US nuclear history, Bravo had a radioactive cloud that plumed over 7,000 square miles [11,260 square kilometres]... set off from Bikini Atoll, it vaporised three of the atoll's 23 islets," says the University of Hawaii's Professor Beverly Deepe Keever in her book News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb. "A hundred or so miles downwind, near-lethal fallout powdered at least 236 inhabitants of the Rongelap and Utrik atolls." Within ten years 90 per cent of children under 12 at the time of the detonation went on to develop thyroid cancer. By 2004, the US had paid around US$759 million in damages to victims of nuclear testing in the Pacific, a fraction of what it has been asked to pay.
6. Worst agricultural disaster: Dustbowl (1930-1936)

Years of poor farming practices and sustained drought in the Great Plains of the US led to vast 'Black Roller' dust storms that billowed across the nation in the 1930s, taking with them the precious topsoil and irreparably damaging the prairies. Deep ploughing practices had removed the root structures of grasses that had long held the soil in place in a swathe of the continent centred around Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. 1934's Yearbook of Agriculture reported that "approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production...100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil." In all, 400,000 square kilometres were affected. By 1940, when crops returned, some 2.5 million people had migrated out of the Great Plains region.
7. Worst extinction event: Australia's desert marsupials (19th and 20th centuries)

Australia has the planet's worst record for mammal extinctions: 28 species and subspecies (17 of them marsupials) have been lost over the last 200 years, according to Professor Chris Dickman at the University of Sydney. The extinction of large numbers of desert marsupials, such as bandicoots and hare-wallabies, coincided with both the large-scale conversion of the arid continent for grazing and the introduction of invasive species such as foxes and cats. In some cases the exterminations were officially orchestrated, says Dickman, to prevent native animals from competing with grazing livestock. Queensland's 1877 Marsupial Destruction Act alone may have caused the deaths of 27 million medium-sized marsupials until it was repealed in 1930, he says.

"Australia is one of 17 mega-diverse countries in the world, ranking number one for the grouping of mammals, reptiles, birds, and amphibians...however, it also has some of the highest rates of extinctions of native wildlife," says the WWF's Gilly Llewellyn, who adds that land clearing continues today. "A 2007 report by WWF on land clearing in NSW found more than 104 million native mammals, birds and reptiles are estimated to have died as a result of the clearing of native vegetation approved between 1998 and 2005."
Disaster still unfolding

These seven eco-catastrophes caused untold damage often over short periods of time, but the biggest environmental disasters - population growth and climate change - are insidious events that were ignored for many years but are now well known. "The worst ecological disaster that we have known, climate change, is unfolding before us at the moment," says Steve Campbell from Greenpeace.

"Climate change affects people and nature in countless ways, and it often increases existing threats that have already put pressure on the environment," adds Llewellyn. "But it is not a problem which has appeared overnight - it's 30 years since scientists first alerted the world to the dangers of climate change. How much longer are we going to allow it to continue?"

 

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