Environmental Disasters

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Environmental Disasters

• A visual journey

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Donora, PA Smog Disaster

• 1948

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This picture was taken at
NOON on Oct. 29, 1948 in Donora, PA
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Toxic London Fog

• 1952

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Minamata Bay Mercury Poisoning

• Late 1950s

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Minamata Bay
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• Mercury poisoning to central nervous system

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Burning of the Cuyahoga River

• 1969

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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.

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Santa Barbara Oil Spill

• 1969

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Love Canal

• 1976-1978

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Times Beach, MO
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Three-Mile Island

• Maybe not a disaster
• but worth noting
• 1979

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Partially melted core
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Bhopal Incident

• 1984

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Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

• 1986

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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

• 1989

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• 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.

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First Gulf War Oil Spills

• 1991

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