Environmental Disasters

A visual journey

Donora, PA Smog Disaster

1948

This picture was taken at…

NOON on Oct. 29, 1948 in Donora, PA

Toxic London Fog

1952

Minamata Bay Mercury Poisoning

Late 1950’s

Minamata Bay

Mercury poisoning to central nervous system

Burning of the Cuyahoga River

1969

excerpted from Time Magazine, August 1, 1969

Boat caught in flaming Cuyahoga Some River! Chocolate Brown, oily, bubbling with sub surface gases, it oozes rather than flows. "Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown," Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. "He decays." The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- quite literally -- a fire hazard. A few weeks ago, the oil-slicked river burst into flames and burned with such intensity that two railroad bridges spanning it were nearly destroyed.

Santa Barbara Oil Spill

1969

Love Canal

1976-1978

Times Beach, MO

Three-Mile Island

Maybe not a disaster…

but worth noting

1979

Partially melted core

Bhopal Incident

1984

http://eur.news1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/xp/afpji/20060411/060411110917.pvdg4oin0_survivors-of-the-bhopal-gas-leak-protest-in-new-deb.jpg

Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

1986

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

1989

“The EXXON VALDEZ ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 24, 1989, spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into the marine environment. It is currently #53 on the all-time list of largest oil spills.”

First Gulf War Oil Spills

1991

More recently?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill_-_May_24%2C_2010_-_with_locator.jpg

And even more recently…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8389009/Japan-earthquake-Fukushima-Fifty-risking-their-lives-to-avert-nuclear-disaster.htmlhttp://edigitales.org/fukushima-nuclear-power-plant/