The Environment Chronicle

On Friday 7 December 2007, the oil tanker the Hebei Spirit was anchored in front of the Port of Incheon on the west coast of South Korea, south of Seoul, when it was hit by the barge Samsung 1. This collision led to 3 breaches in the hull of the Hebei Spirit, and a spill of at least 10,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Yellow Sea.

On 23 November 2007 the Liberian registered passenger vessel Explorer sank in a position 25 miles southeast of Penguin Island in the Bransfield Strait near to the South Shetland Islands in about 1300 meters of water.

A storm on Sunday, 11 November 2007, broke a Russian oil tanker, the Volgoneft-139, in half spilling at least 1,300 tonnes of fuel oil in the Kerch strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

The container ship Cosco Busan struck the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in thick fog on November 7. 58,000 gallons (220,000 litres) of fuel oil spilled into San Francisco Bay.

The collision between the double-hulled oil tanker Torm Gertrud and the bulk carrier New Flame occurred off the coast of Gibraltar on 12 August 2007. The vessel broke up into two on 22 December amid numerous unsuccessful recovery efforts. On 11 February the New Flame sank almost completely only its upper section could be seen above the surface. The wreck of New Flame has caused several oil spills.

Heavy rainstorms caused by an extraordinary weather situation led to major floodings in parts of the UK. During June and July 2007 a large low-pressure area coming from the Atlantic Ocean was trapped over Wales and England.

Some 370 tonnes of oil have seeped from the 180-metre (600-foot) Cypriot-flagged vessel which ran aground and split in two in heavy weather off Norway's west coast on Friday night. An oil slick from the grounded cargo ship has covered some 440 birds in oil.

An oil spill originating from the oil transfer installations of Prahovo in Serbia polluted the Danube River over some 140 km in Bulgarian territory downstream.

On 11 August 2006, the tanker Solar 1, chartered by Petron Corp, was transporting 2,000 tonnes of oil when she sank in the Guimaras Straits, some 10 nautical miles south of Guimaras Island, Republic of the Philippines. Over 1,300 tonnes of oil were spilled at sea very rapidly. Hundreds of kilometres of shoreline were contaminated to varying degrees.

On 25 July 2006 a short circuit in the external high voltage network caused problems with the emergency power supply of the Forsmark (Sweden) nuclear power plant. As a consequence there was a shortfall in the supply of water coolant to the reactor, and a number of display units and regulators failed. For more than 20 minutes the operating team did not have the reactor fully under control. (Level 2 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES))

In the course of the conflict in the Middle East, the oil-fuelled power plant of Jieh, located directly on the coastline approximately 30 km south of Beirut, was hit by bombs on July 13 and 15, 2006. Part of the storage tanks caught fire and were burning for several days. 30,000 tons of heavy fuel oil was spilled into the Mediterranean Sea as a result of the blast.

On Sunday 11 December 2005, a series of explosions and subsequent fire destroyed large parts of the Buncefield oil storage and transfer depot, Hemel Hempstead, and caused widespread damage to neighbouring properties. The incident injured 43 people. There was significant damage to both commercial and residential properties near the Buncefield site. About 2000 people had to be evacuated from their homes and sections of the M1 motorway were closed. The fire burned for five days, destroying most of the site and emitting a large plume of smoke into the atmosphere that dispersed over southern England and beyond.

A serie of explosions at a chemical plant of the Jilin Petrochemical Company in Jilin City on 13 November 2005 resulted in the accidental release of benzene and benzene-like organic compounds, including nitrobenzene, into the Songhua River.

A seaquake with the strength of 9.0 on the Richter scale and the resulting flood wave (tsunami) has caused disastrous damage to people, their livelihoods and their natural environments in South and Southeast Asia. One of the reasons for the high degree of damage has been the clearing of the natural mangrovia protection forests and the dense population along the coastal line due to tourism. The World Conservation Union (IUCN, http://www.iucn.org) demands following ecological guidelines in future development plans.

The Malaysian freighter "Selendang Ayu" went aground and broke in two parts near the Aleutian Islands. It carried approximately 424,000 gallons of Intermediate Fuel Oil (IFO 380) and 18,000 gallons of Marine Diesel. The salvage work was hindered by winter storms and by the bad state of the wreck. The midsection fuel tank ruptured when the vessel broke apart and released an estimated 40,131 gallons of IFO 380. The complete amount of oilspill remains unknown. The region of the North Pacific and the Bering Sea is the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, the habitat of endangered seabirds, sea lions, seals, sea otters, and walruses. Only 15 years ago the Exxon Valdez went aground near by and caused irreversible damages.

Extraction of fuel oil from the shipwrecked Prestige - lying at a depth of 4,000 metres just off the Galician coast - is almost finished. The Prestige split apart in a storm off the Galicia coast Nov. 19, 2002, disgorging most of its 77,000 tonnes of thick, toxic fuel oil onto the beaches of northern Spain and southwestern France in what was Spain's worst environmental disaster. Nearly 1,500 tonnes of oil remain inside the two pieces of the ship. Thousends of tonnes have spread over the sea surface.

The oil tanker Tasman Spirit grounded in the channel of the port of Karachi, Pakistan in the early hours of Sunday 27 July 2003. The vessel was carrying 67,535 tonnes of Iranian Light crude oil destined for the national refinery in Karachi. On 11 August the tanker began to show signs of breaking up and eventually broke in two overnight on 13/14 August, spilling several thousand tonnes of crude oil. Much of the spilled oil quickly stranded on Clifton Beach, the main tourist beach in Karachi, but significant quantities remained afloat both inside and outside Karachi port. In total, it is estimated that some 30,000 tonnes of oil was spilled from the Tasman Spirit.

On 31 May 2003, the Chinese bulk carrier Fu Shan Hai collided with the Polish freighter Gdynia about 40 km southwest of Sweden and 4.5 km north of Hammer Odde, Bornholm in the western Baltic Sea. Fu Shan Hai sank at 68 meters water depth from where it began to leak oil. Fu Shan Hai was carrying 66.000 tons of carbonate of potash, 1680 tons of heavy fuel oil, 110 tons of diesel oil and 35 tons of lubricating oil.

On Saturday 14 December 2002 at around 2.30 am, the Tricolor, a car carrier collided with the container ship the Kariba. The Tricolor sank 30 m deep in a matter of minutes, in the Pas-de-Calais, 20 miles northwest of Dunkirk. She was transporting 2,862 new cars and 77 containers. The Tricolor was transporting 1,990 tonnes of Intermediate Fuel Oil, 200 m³ of diesel oil and 25 tonnes of lubricating oil. The wreck represented a risk for navigation and a potential source of pollution.

During the first 13 days of August 2002 extraordinary heavy rains fell in parts of Central Europe, causing disastrous flooding along the rivers Elbe and Danube and severe damage totalling an estimated 30 000 million US $. 450 000 people were evacuated and more than 100 lost their lives. In the first 5 days of August heavy thunderstorms developing in warm moist air affected northern Germany. On 1 August, some stations reported the highest 24-hour rainfall on record (Cuxhaven 63,6 mm), and regionally, the precipitation totals of 2 days exceeded the monthly normals by 50 %.

In May 2002, a mortality of common seals caused by phocine distemper (pd) virus infection was identified in the Danish Kattegat area. Since then, the virus has spread to the Swedish and Norwegian coast in the Kattegat/Skagerrak area, to the east coast of the United Kingdom and also to the Dutch, German and Danish Wadden Sea, where the virus was first found in a common seal stranded on the Dutch Wadden Sea coast in mid June 2002. The occurrence of the pdv infection was associated with an unusually high mortality in the above areas. Between the beginning in May 2002 and the end of October 2002, in total about 21,000 dead common seals (Poca vitulina) were registered in the Danish-Swedish-Norwegian Kattegat/Skagerrak area, the Limfjord, the Baltic Sea, the Wadden Sea and the North Sea.

A huge explosion ripped through AZF (Azote de France) fertiliser factory in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Toulouse, southwest of France, on 21 September 2001. The explosion had occurred in a warehouse in which granular ammonium nitrate was stored flat, separated by partitions.

The Zainab, a Georgian-flagged tanker, was carrying 1,300 tonnes of fuel oil when it sank off the port of Jebel Ali, south of Dubai. There were fears that the spill would reach the coastline and the desalination plants which supply Dubai with fresh water.

A freighter carrying sulfuric acid sank in the Bay of Biscay off the northern coast of Spain on March 20, 2002. The Balu, a 24-year-old Maltese-registered ship, sank en route from Frederiksen, Denmark to the south of Spain. The ship was carrying about 8,000 tons of sulfuric acid when it sank about 136 miles north of the Spanish coast.

On 16 January 2001, the Ecuadorean-registered tanker Jessica ran aground at Wreck bay, at the entrance to the port of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the Galápagos Province, located on the southwestern coast of San Cristóbal Island. A total of 800 000 litres of diesel and fuel oil spilled into the sea.

Around 4 million litres of crude oil escape from a burst pipeline belonging to the state-owned oil concern Petrobas into the Barigui and Iguacu rivers, 700 km south-west of Rio de Janeiro. The Iguacu flows through the Iguacu Falls national park. The oil slick, several cm thick, kills thousands of fish and birds and threatens the water supplies of some cities. The Iguacu Falls, one of the largest tourist attractions in brazil, are also threatened. Floating barriers are used to contain the slick while it is pumped off. The oil concern is fined tens of millions US$.

A storm and technical failure cause the dam at the Rumanian-Australian gold miner Aural's treatment plant to burst in the northern Rumanian city Baia Mare. 100,000 m_ mud contaminated with cyanide pour into Hungary's second largest river, the Theiss, and from there into the Danube. The Danube delta, previously environmentally intact, is threatened. The contamination kills thousands of fish and poisons drinking water.

With a hurricane blowing over southern Germany, Reactor Block B is shut down, and Block C's output reduced from 1300 to 500 MW. Later in the evening, Block C was powered up fully, and at 9.23 pm, Block B was again operational. These precautionary measures prevented any damage to the facility.

The Erika breaks in half in heavy seas off the west coast of France and sinks to the sea bed with two thirds of its cargo. Special ships attempt to pump the remaining oil away (10,000 to 12,000 t). Nonetheless, the storm drives the oil slick onto the coast over Christmas, contaminating over 400 km of coastline and at least 6000 birds.

A serious incident at the Japanese reprocessing plant injures some technicians, killing two. Hundreds of people are exposed to radioactivity.

A storm causes a short circuit in the Ukrainian nuclear power station, leading to a fire in the cooling system for the first reactor block. The fire can be kept under control (source: Greenpeace).

The Rumanian nuclear power station is shut down for 36 hours due to an interruption in the water supply (source: Greenpeace).

Radioactive steam escapes from the ventilation system in the Russian power station. The exact levels of radiation or pollution are unknown (source: Greenpeace).

The fuel rods prove faulty, the reactor is shut down (source: Greenpeace).

Russia cannot afford to maintain and make necessary repairs to the power station. One reason is the unpaid electricity bills (source: Greenpeace).

Russia cannot afford to maintain and make necessary repairs to the power station. One reason is the unpaid electricity bills (source: Greenpeace).

During an inspection, an employee of the power station is exposed to radiation of 340 MilliSievert (the current permitted maximum is 50, and this was reduced to 20 as of May 2000). Scores 2 on the 7 point INES scale (source: Greenpeace).

The catastrophic financial situation at the power stations increases their risk. Only 2.4 to 5% of electricity bills are paid in cash, the rest in kind or not at all. Wages cannot be paid, fuel and replacement parts cannot be bought (source: Greenpeace).