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Our Environment Through Time
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Minamata Disease
Minamata disease sometimes referred to as Chisso-Minamata diease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision, and damage to hearing and speech. -
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States test of a dry fuel hydrogen bomb, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States (and just under one-third the energy of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful device ever detonated), with a yield of 15 megatons of TNT. -
The Palomares Incident
The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash or Palomares incident occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. -
Fukushima Daiichi
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is a disabled BWR nuclear power plant located on a 3.5-square-kilometre in the towns of Okuma and Futaba in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. -
Eccocide in Vietnam
The term ecocide refers to any extensive damage or destruction of the natural landscape and disruption or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory to such an extent that the survival of the inhabitants of that territory is endangered. Ecocide can be irreversible when an ecosystem suffers beyond self healing. It is generally associated with damage caused by a living agent whether directly or indirectly. -
Amoco Cadiz
Amoco Cadiz was a very large crude carrier (VLCC) under the Liberian flag of convenience owned by Amoco. On 16 March 1978, she ran aground on Portsall Rocks, 5 km (3 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France; and ultimately split in three and sank, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date. -
The Seveso Disaster
The Seveso disaster was an industrial accident that occurred around 12:37 pm July 10, 1976, in a small chemical manufacturing plant approximately 15 kilometres (9 mi) north of Milan in the Lombardy region in Italy. It resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations[1] which gave rise to numerous scientific studies and standardized industrial safety regulations. -
The Three Mile Island Nuclear Explosion
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979 in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences. -
The Love Canal
Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. -
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. local time and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil over the next few days. -
The Kuwait Oil Fires
The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by Iraqi military forces setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas, such as "oil lakes" and "fire trenches", as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 due to the advances of Coalition military forces in the Persian Gulf War. -
Baia Mare Cyanide Spill
The 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania, into the Someş River by the gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government.
The polluted waters eventually reached the Tisza and then the Danube, killing large numbers of fish in Hungary and Yugoslavia. The spill has been called the worst environmental disaster in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster. -
E-waste in Guiyu, China
Guiyu, in Guangdong Province, China, is made up of four small villages. It is the location of what may be the largest electronic waste (e-waste) site in the world.In 2005 there were 60,000 e-waste workers in Guiyu who processed the more than 100 truckloads that were transported to the 52 square kilometre area every day. -
Jilin Chemical Plant Explosions
The Jilin chemical plant explosions were a series of explosions which occurred on November 13, 2005, in the No.101 Petrochemical Plant in Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, over the period of an hour. -
Sidoarjo Mud Flow
The Sidoarjo mud flow or Lapindo mud (informally abbreviated as Lusi, a contraction of Lumpur Sidoarjo wherein lumpur is the Indonesian word for mud) is the result of an erupting mud volcano in the subdistrict of Porong, Sidoarjo in East Java, Indonesia that has been in eruption since May 2006 -
Deep water horizon BP oil spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It claimed eleven lives and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill.