This article is a list of environmental disasters. In this context it is an annotated list of specific events caused by human activity that results in a negative effect on the

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

Environmental disasters by category

Agricultural

* Mismanagement and shrinking of the

Aral Sea The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic lake lying between Kazak ...

* Salinity in Australia * Salinization of the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...

* The

Dust Bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) a ...

in Canada and the United States (1934–1939) * The Great sparrow campaign; sparrows were eliminated from Chinese farms, which caused locusts to swarm the farms and contributed to a famine which killed 38 million people. *

Africanized bee The Africanized bee, also known as the Africanized honey bee and known colloquially as the "killer bee", is a hybrid of the western honey bee (''Apis mellifera''), produced originally by crossbreeding of the East African lowland honey bee (''A. ...

s, known colloquially as "killer bees" * "

Dirty dairying In New Zealand "dirty dairying" refers to damage to the ecological health of New Zealand's freshwater environment by the intensification of dairy farming, and also to the high profile campaign begun in 2002 by the Fish and Game Council to highlig ...

" in New Zealand *

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gul ...

California, U.S.

Biodiversity

* 2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter *

Chestnut blight The pathogenic fungus ''Cryphonectria parasitica'' (formerly ''Endothia parasitica'') is a member of the Ascomycota (sac fungi). This necrotrophic fungus is native to East Asia and South East Asia and was introduced into Europe and North America ...

* Decline of

vulture A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...

s in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

due to

Diclofenac Diclofenac, sold under the brand name Voltaren, among others, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammatory diseases such as gout. It is taken by mouth or rectally in a suppository, used by injection, or ...

leading to increased incidence of

rabies Rabies is a viral disease that causes encephalitis in humans and other mammals. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure. These symptoms are followed by one or more of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, ...

* Deforestation of

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

* Destruction of the old growth forests * Devil facial tumour disease *

Dutch Elm Disease Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into America, Europe ...

Emerald Ash Borer The emerald ash borer (''Agrilus planipennis''), also known by the acronym EAB, is a green buprestid or jewel beetle native to north-eastern Asia that feeds on ash species. Females lay eggs in bark crevices on ash trees, and larvae feed undern ...

Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef systems, stretching along the East coast of Australia from the northern tip down to the town of Bundaberg, is composed of roughly 2,900 individual reefs and 940 islands and cays that stretch f ...

* Extinction of Australian megafauna * Four Pests Campaign of China, 1958 * Ghost nets * Grounding of SS ''Makambo'' on

Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland Po ...

* Invasive species in New Zealand * Introduction of the Nile perch into

Lake Victoria Lake Victoria is one of the African Great Lakes. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface area after ...

in Africa, devastating indigenous fish species *

Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows, was the man-made contamination of the Wabigoon River in Ontario, Canada. The contamination was described as "one of the worst cases of environmental poisoning in Canadian history" and is linked to an uncon ...

* Rabbits in Australia *

Red imported fire ant The red imported fire ant (''Solenopsis invicta''), also known as the fire ant or RIFA, is a species of ant native to South America. A member of the genus '' Solenopsis'' in the subfamily Myrmicinae, it was described by Swiss entomologist Feli ...

s * Reduction in the number of the

American Bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

* * Shark finning * The Saemangeum Seawall * The loss of biodiversity of New Zealand

Human health

* Introduction of the bubonic plague ( the Plague of Justinian) in Europe from Africa in the 7th century resulting in the death of up to 60% (100 million) of the population. * Introduction of the bubonic plague (

the Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

) in Europe from Central Asia in the 14th century resulting in the death of up to 60% (200 million) of the population and recurring until the 18th century. * Introduction of infectious diseases by Europeans causing the death of indigenous people during

European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short t ...

* Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks * Goiânia accident, human deaths resulting from dismantling a scrapped medical machine containing a source of radioactivity *

Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the "tactical use" Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It ...

use by the United States during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, resulting in lasting serious health effects on the Vietnamese population, such as

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, nervous system disorders, and countless related fatalities *

Industrial

* 1912 Itai-itai disease, due to cadmium poisoning in Japan *

1948 Donora smog The 1948 Donora smog killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora, Pennsylvania, a mill town on the Monongahela River southeast of Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the Donora Smog Mus ...

* 1952 The Great Smog in London * 1962 to 1970

* 1970 Ontario Minamata disease in Canada * 1976 Seveso disaster, chemical plant explosion, caused highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations * 1983 Times Beach, Missouri the town was completely evacuated due to a

dioxin Dioxin may refer to: * 1,2-Dioxin or 1,4-Dioxin, two unsaturated heterocyclic 6-membered rings where two carbon atoms have been replaced by oxygen atoms, giving the molecular formula C4H4O2 * Dibenzo-1,4-dioxin, the parent compound also known ...

contamination * 1984 Bhopal disaster (December 3, 1984, India), leak of methyl isocyanate resulted in more than 22,000 deaths. * 1986 Sandoz chemical spill into the Rhine river * 1989 Phillips Disasters * 1990, Release of

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

heavy metals upright=1.2, Crystals of osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">lead.html" ;"title="osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead Heavy metals are generally defined as ...

and

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a se ...

into the Alamosa River, Colorado, from the Summitville mine, causing the death of all aquatic life 17 miles downstream. * 1991, California's largest hazardous chemical spill: A 19,000-gallon (72,000 L) tank railroad car containing the pesticide/herbicide metam sodium derails from a northbound Southern Pacific freight train, tumbling off the bridge over the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento� ...

at the Cantara Loop near

Dunsmuir, California Dunsmuir is a city in Siskiyou County, northern California. It is on the upper Sacramento River in the Trinity Mountains. Its population is 1,707 as of the 2020 census, up from 1,650 from the 2010 census. Dunsmuir is currently a hub for tourism ...

, and rupturing on the rocks below, spilling the car's entire load into the river. Virtually every aquatic organism on a 40-mile (64 km) stretch of river was killed. *

2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill The 2000 Baia Mare Cyanide spill was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania, into the Someș River by the gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government. The polluted ...

of a gold mine in Romania, January 2000 * 2001 AZF Toulouse chemical factory explosion * 2003 Release of sulfur dioxide at the Al-Mishraq plant in Iraq * 2005 Jilin chemical plant explosions * 2007 Release of lead dust into Esperance Harbour * 2008 Guangxi chemical plant explosions China * 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill * 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill China * 2012 Guangxi cadmium spill China, when toxic

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Li ...

contaminated the Guangxi Longjiang river (龙江河) and water supply. *

2015 Shenzhen landslide A landslide of construction waste occurred at Shenzhen, on 20 December 2015. It destroyed and buried industrial buildings and worker living quarters in the nearby industrial park. The death toll was 73, with 4 people reported missing. It was an ...

China, a landslide of construction waste at Shenzhen. * 2018 Fujian Quangang Carbon Nine leakage event China * Baogang Tailings Dam China * Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam * Health issues on the

Aamjiwnaang First Nation The Aamjiwnaang First Nation (formerly known as Chippewas of Sarnia First Nation) is an Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) First Nations Band located on reserve land by the St. Clair River, three miles south of the southern tip of Lake Huron. The reserve is ...

due to chemical factories *

Love Canal Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a landfill that became the site of an enormous environmental disaster in the 1970s. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals harmed the health of hund ...

toxic waste site *

Minamata disease Minamata disease is a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. Signs and symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme ...

(1950s and 1960s) mercury poisoning in Japan * Release of CFCs resulting in

ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone lay ...

* Spring Valley, which was used as a chemical weapons testing ground during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. * Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens sites in the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, known as the largest toxic waste site in North America. * United States Environmental Protection Agency

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency ...

sites in the United States

Mining

* Summitville mine in Colorado, from 1870 to 1992 * Iron Mountain Mine in California, from 1879 to 1963 *

Argonaut Mine The Argonaut Mine is a gold mine in Jackson, California, United States. The deposit was discovered 1850 and was the site of the worst gold-mining disaster in the state's history. The mine closed in 1942 and, along with the nearby Kennedy Min ...

in California, from 1893 to 1942 * Copper mining in Tasmania, from 1893 to 1994 *

Phosphate mining in Nauru The economy of Nauru and Banaba has been almost wholly dependent on phosphate, which has led to environmental catastrophe on these islands, with 80% of the islands’ surface having been strip-mined. The phosphate deposits were virtually exhaust ...

, from 1906 to the 1990s * Phosphate mining in St. Pierre Island from 1906 to 1972 * 1947 Centralia mine disaster, a coal mine in Illinois * Centralia mine fire, Pennsylvania, burning since 1962 * Mountaintop removal mining in the US since the 1960s * Aberfan disaster, collapse of a coal mining waste pile in Wales, 1966 * Tui mine, tailings dam from the now abandoned in New Zealand, 1966 to 2013 * Darvaza gas crater in

Derweze Darvaza (from fa, دروازه, literally "gate"; tk, Derweze) is a rural council (village council) in Ak bugdaý District, Ahal Province, Turkmenistan of about 350 inhabitants, located in the middle of the Karakum Desert, about 260 km nor ...

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...

, burning since 1971 *

Uranium mining controversy in Kakadu National Park Kakadu National Park, located in the Northern Territory of Australia, possesses within its boundaries a number of large uranium deposits. The uranium is legally owned by the Australian Government, and is sold internationally, having a large ...

in Australia, 1981 to 2009 *

Ok Tedi environmental disaster The Ok Tedi environmental disaster caused severe harm to the environment along of the Ok Tedi River and the Fly River in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea between around 1984 and 2013. The lives of 50,000 people have been disrupted. One o ...

in Papua New Guinea beginning in 1984 * Omai gold mine tailing dam breach in Guyana, 1995 *

Marcopper mining disaster The Marcopper mining disaster is one of the worst mining and environmental disasters in Philippine history. It occurred on March 24, 1996, on the Philippine island of Marinduque, a province of the Philippines located in the Mimaropa region. The di ...

in the Philippines, March 1996 *

Doñana disaster The Doñana Disaster, also known as the Aznalcollar Disaster or Guadiamar Disaster ( Sp: ''Desastre de Aznalcóllar'', ''Desastre del Guadiamar''), was an industrial accident in Andalusia, southern Spain. On 25 April 1998, a holding dam burst ...

, tailings dam breach of the Los Frailes zinc/silver mine in Spain, April 1998 * Aitik mine, tailings dam failure in Sweden, September 2000 *

Martin County sludge spill The Martin County coal slurry spill was a mining accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, broke into an abandoned underground min ...

in Kentucky, October 2000 * Magellan Metals mine, lead dust in Australia, 2006 * Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia, April 2010 * Padcal tailings spills of August-September 2012 * Talvivaara gypsum pond leak, Finland, 2012 * Obed Mountain coal mine spill in Alberta, Canada, October 2013 *

2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill The 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill was an environmental disaster that began at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, when Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) personnel, along with workers for Environmental Restoration LLC (a Miss ...

in Colorado, August 2015 * Mariana dam disaster, Samarco iron ore mine tailings dam failure, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo to the Atlantic sea. Brazil, November 2015 *

Orinoco Mining Arc The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA), officially created on 24 February 2016 as the "Arco Mining Orinoco National Strategic Development Zone", is an area rich in mineral resources that Venezuela has been operating since 2017; It has 7,000 tons of reser ...

, Venezuela, February 2016 * Brumadinho dam disaster of an iron ore mine in Brazil, January 2019 * Hpakant jade mine disaster landslide of tailings into waterway in Myanmar, July 2020

Oil industry

Lakeview Gusher The Lakeview Gusher was an eruption of hydrocarbons from a pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, in 1910. It created the largest accidental oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing of c ...

oil spill in California, 1910 –1911 *

Leaded gasoline Tetraethyllead (commonly styled tetraethyl lead), abbreviated TEL, is an organolead compound with the formula Pb( C2H5)4. It is a fuel additive, first being mixed with gasoline beginning in the 1920s as a patented octane rating booster tha ...

introduced 1920s; phased out globally by 2012. *

Greenpoint oil spill The Greenpoint oil spill is one of the largest oil spills ever recorded in the United States. Located around Newtown Creek in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, between of oil and petroleum products have leaked into the soil ...

in Brooklyn, New York, 1940s–1980 * Mississippi River oil spill (1962–1963) *

Torrey Canyon oil spill The ''Torrey Canyon'' oil spill was one of the world's most serious oil spills. The supertanker ran aground on rocks off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom in 1967, spilling an estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million litres) ...

off the SW coast of the United Kingdom, February 1967 *

Lago Agrio oil field The Lago Agrio oil field is an oil-rich area near the city of Nueva Loja in the province of Sucumbíos, Ecuador. It is located in the Western Oriente Basin. The site's hydrocarbon-bearing formations are the Cretaceous Napo and Hollin format ...

spills in Ecuador, since 1972 (possibly the worst of all) * MV Sea Star and Horta Barbosa tankers collision and oil spill into the

Gulf of Oman The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman ( ar, خليج عمان ''khalīj ʿumān''; fa, دریای عمان ''daryâ-ye omân''), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran ( ar, خلیج مکران ''khalīj makrān''; fa, دریای مکرا� ...

, December 1972 * Jakob Maersk oil spill off the coast of Portugal, January 1975 * Environmental issues in the Niger Delta relating to the oil industry, 1976–1996 *

Arctic Refuge drilling controversy The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977. As of 2017, Republicans have attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost fifty time ...

, since 1977 * Amoco Cadiz shipwreck and oil spill off the coast of

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...

, France, March 1978 * Ixtoc I oil spill into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

, June 1979 *

SS Atlantic Empress SS ''Atlantic Empress'' was a Greek oil tanker that in 1979 collided with the oil tanker '' Aegean Captain'' in the Caribbean, and eventually sank, having created the fifth largest oil spill on record and the largest ship-based spill having sp ...

collision and spill near

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, August 1979 * MT Independența collision and spill near

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, November 1979 * Nowruz oil spills into the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...

, March 1983 * Castillo de Bellver oil spill off the coast of South Africa, August 1983 * Odyssey tanker shipwreck and oil spill, off the coast of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, November 1988 *

Exxon Valdez oil spill The ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. '' Exxon Valdez'', an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company bound for Long Beach, California struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, w ...

in the Prince William Sound,

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

, March 1989 * Gulf War oil spill into the Persian Gulf, January 1991 *

MT Haven MT ''Haven'', formerly ''Amoco Milford Haven'', was a VLCC (very large crude carrier), leased to Troodos Shipping (a company run by Loucas Haji-Ioannou and his son Stelios Haji-Ioannou). In 1991, while loaded with 144,000 tonnes (1 million ba ...

explosion and oil spill of the coast of Italy, April 1991 * ABT Summer explosion and oil spill off the coast of Angola, May 1991 *

Mingbulak oil spill The Mingbulak oil spill also known as the Fergana Valley oil spill was the worst terrestrial oil spill in the history of Asia. The oil spill was caused by a blowout on March 2, 1992 at the Mingbulak oil field in the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan at w ...

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

, March 1992 *

MV Braer The MV ''Braer'' was an oil tanker which ran aground during a storm off Shetland, Scotland, in January 1993, and nearly a week later broke up during the most intense extratropical cyclone on record for the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Braer Sto ...

shipwreck and oil spill at the

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

, January 1993 * Taylor oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, since 2004 * Sidoarjo mud flow triggered by Lapindo Brantas gas exploration in 2006; East Java, Indonesia * Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, April to July 2010 * 2010 ExxonMobil oil spill in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, May 2010 * Jebel al-Zayt oil spill in the Red Sea, June 2010 * Xingang Port oil spill into the Yellow Sea, July 2010 * Sanchi oil tanker collision in the East China Sea, January 2018 *

MV Wakashio oil spill The MV ''Wakashio'' oil spill occurred after the Japanese bulk carrier ''Wakashio'' ran aground on a coral reef on 25 July 2020 at around 16:00 UTC. The ship began to leak fuel oil in the following weeks, and broke apart in mid August. Althou ...

in south Mauritius, since July 2020 *

El Palito oil spill The El Palito oil spill was an oil spill that occurred at the El Palito refinery, Venezuela, in July 2020. Oil spill The spill was estimated to be 25 thousand oil barrels into the Triste Gulf due to malfunctions in the cooler of the heat exchan ...

off the coast of Venezuela, since July 2020

Nuclear

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two n ...

in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine killed 49 people and was estimated to have damaged almost $7 billion of property". Radioactive fallout from the accident concentrated near Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and at least 350,000 people were forcibly resettled away from these areas. After the accident, "traces of radioactive deposits unique to Chernobyl were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere".

Benjamin K. Sovacool Benjamin K. Sovacool is an American academic who is director of the Institute for Global Sustainability at Boston University as well as Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University. He was formerly Director of the Danish Center for Ene ...

. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, ''

Energy Policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contr ...

'' 36 (2008), p. 1806. *

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 ...

: Following an earthquake, tsunami, and failure of cooling systems at

Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant may refer to: Japan * Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture **Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan ***Fukushima University, national university in Japan ***Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushima ...

and issues concerning other nuclear facilities in Japan on March 11, 2011, a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20 km of the plant were evacuated. Explosions and a fire have resulted in dangerous levels of

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

, sparking a stock market collapse and panic-buying in supermarkets. * Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion, (

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, September 29, 1957), 200+ people died and 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous

levels. Over thirty small communities had been removed from Soviet maps between 1958 and 1991. * Windscale fire, United Kingdom, October 8, 1957. Fire ignites plutonium piles and contaminates surrounding dairy farms. * Soviet submarine K-431 accident, August 10, 1985 (10 people died and 49 suffered radiation injuries).The Worst Nuclear Disasters
/ref> * Soviet submarine K-19 accident, July 4, 1961 (8 deaths and more than 30 people were over-exposed to radiation).Strengthening the Safety of Radiation Sources
p. 14. * Nuclear testing at

Moruroa Moruroa (Mururoa, Mururura), also historically known as Aopuni, is an atoll which forms part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is located about southeast of Tahiti. Administratively Moruroa Atoll i ...

and

Fangataufa Fangataufa (or Fangatafoa) is an uninhabited coral atoll in the eastern part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. The atoll has been fully-owned by the French state since 1964. From 1966 to 1996 it was used as a nuclear test site by t ...

in the Pacific Ocean * Fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands * The health of Downwinders *

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. * Three Mile Island, 1979 - It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 – Accident with Wider Consequences. * Hanford Nuclear, 1986 – The U.S. government declassifies 19,000 pages of documents indicating that between 1946 and 1986, the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, released thousands of US gallons of radioactive liquids.

Radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapon ...

was both released into the air and flowed into the Columbia River (which flows to the Pacific Ocean). In 2014, the Hanford legacy continues with billions of dollars spent annually in a seemingly endless cleanup of leaking underground

Air/land/water

* Proliferation of plastic shopping bags * Hong Kong Plastic Disaster

Air

* The

Donora Smog of 1948 The 1948 Donora smog killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora, Pennsylvania, a mill town on the Monongahela River southeast of Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the Donora Smog Mus ...

in Donora, Pennsylvania, in the United States * The Great Smog of 1952, which killed 4,000 Londoners * The 1983 Melbourne dust storm * The

1997 Southeast Asian haze The 1997 Southeast Asian haze was an international air pollution disaster that occurred during the second half of 1997, its after-effects causing widespread atmospheric visibility and health problems within Southeast Asia. Considered the most ...

* The

2005 Malaysian haze The 2005 Malaysian haze was an air pollution crisis caused primarily by fires in neighbouring Indonesia. In August 2005, haze spread across Malaysia from forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leading to air quality reaching hazardous ...

* The

2006 Southeast Asian haze The 2006 Southeast Asian haze event was caused by continued uncontrolled burning from "slash and burn" cultivation in Indonesia, and affected several countries in the Southeast Asian region and beyond, such as Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thai ...

* The Great Smog of Delhi in November 2016 *

Yokkaichi asthma refers to cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, pulmonary emphysema, and bronchial asthma in humans and various environmental changes usually attributed to sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions which appeared as smog over the ...

in Japan * Health problems due to the Jinkanpo Atsugi Incinerator in Japan * Kuwaiti oil fires * Burning of the

Amazon forest The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...

-2019

Land

* The

of Canada and the United States in the 1930s * Contaminated soils in Māpua, New Zealand, due to the operation of an agricultural chemicals factory from 1932 to 1989 *

Basin F Basin F was constructed by the United States Army in 1956 at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, to provide for the disposal of contaminated liquid wastes from the chemical manufacturing operations of the Army and its lessee Shell Chemical Company. As ...

, a disposal site in the United States created in 1956 for contaminated liquid wastes from the chemical manufacturing operations of the Army and its lessee Shell Chemicals company * Nigeria gully erosion crisis, since before 1980 *

Exide lead contamination Exide is one of the world's largest producers, distributors and recyclers of lead-acid batteries. Lead-acid batteries are used in automobiles, golf carts, fork-lifts, electric cars and motorcycles. They are recycled by grinding them open, neut ...

at seven locations in the United States, since 1989 *

Electronic waste in Guiyu Guiyu (), in Guangdong Province, China, is widely perceived as 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 th ...

, since the 1990s * 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump

Water

* Sandoz chemical spill, severely polluting the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , source ...

in 1986 * Selenium poisoning of wildlife due to farm runoff used to create

Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge The Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge was an artificial wetland environment, created using agricultural runoff from farmland in California's Central Valley. The irrigation water is transported to the valley from sources in the Sierra Nevada ...

, and the artificial wetland * The Jiyeh Power Station oil spill in the Mediterranean region * Effects of polluted water in the

Berkeley Pit The Berkeley Pit is a former open pit copper mine in the western United States, located in Butte, Montana. It is long by wide, with an approximate depth of . It is filled to a depth of about with water that is heavily acidic (2.5 pH level), a ...

in the United States * Ignition and conflagration (13 times from 1868 to 1969) of the

Cuyahoga River The Cuyahoga River ( , or ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie. As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so m ...

in Ohio, United States * Cheakamus River derailment which polluted a river with caustic soda *

Draining and development of the Everglades A national push for expansion and progress toward the latter part of the 19th century stimulated interest in draining the Everglades, a region of Tropical climate, tropical wetlands in southern Florida, for agricultural use. According to histo ...

* Loss of Louisiana Wetlands due to Mississippi River levees, saltwater intrusion through manmade channels, timber harvesting, subsidence, and hurricane damage. * Lake Okeechobee is heavily polluted and during extreme events releases large volumes of polluted water into the St. Lucie River

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

and the Caloosahatchee River estuary. *

pollution of

Wabigoon River The Wabigoon River is a river in Kenora District in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It flows from Raleigh Lake past Dryden, Ontario on Wabigoon Lake to join the English River. The name "Wabigoon" comes from the Ojibwe ''waabigon'', "marigold", o ...

Amoco Cadiz oil spill The ''Amoco Cadiz'' oil spill took place on 16 March 1978, when the oil tanker ''Amoco Cadiz'', owned by the American petroleum company Amoco, ran aground on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of Brittany, France. The vessel ultimately split in th ...

off the coast of France in 1978 *

Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes The Mesopotamian Marshes were drained in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. Formerly covering an area of around , the main sub-marshes, the ...

in the 1990s *

Red Hill water crisis The Red Hill water crisis is a public health crisis and environmental disaster caused by fuel leaking from the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility into the freshwater aquifer underneath the island of Oʻahu. Residents in military housin ...

in Hawaiʻi, United States beginning in November 2021 * Oder environmental disaster in the 2022

=Marine

= *

Coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleaching occurs when coral polyps expel the zooxanthellae ( dinoflagellates that are commonly referred to as ...

* Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone due to high-nutrient fertilizer runoff from the Midwest that is drained through the Mississippi River. * The artificial Osborne Reef off the coast of

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 Unit ...

, in the United States * Dumping of conventional and chemical munitions in

Beaufort's Dyke Beaufort's Dyke is a natural trench within the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland. The dyke is long, wide and deep. The trench is recorded in 1856 as having been discovered "some years ago" by a Captain Beechey. Geomorphol ...

, a sea trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland *

Marine debris Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a sea or ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, frequently washing ...

Nurdles Nurdle or Nerdle may refer to: *Nurdle (bead), a pre-production microplastic pellet about the size of a pea *Plastic resin pellet pollution, nurdles as marine debris *Nurdle, a term used in cricket; see List of cricket terms This is a genera ...

, plastic pellet typically under 5mm in diameter * The Great Pacific Garbage Patch *

, mercury poisoning in Japan * Mercury in fish *

Ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...

due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions *

2022 Caspian seal die-off On 4 December 2022 a mass die-off of Caspian seals (''Pusa caspica'') in the Caspian Sea was reported. Initially over 140 Caspian seals were found dead on the beaches of Kazakhstan. By 5 December around 2,500 dead Caspian seals have been found on ...

* Industrial waste dumping in Central Vietnam from Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, which kills tons of marine creatures and destroys the ecosystem

References

{{Disasters *

Environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...

Disasters

Environmental disasters by category

Agricultural

Biodiversity

Human health

Industrial

Mining

Oil industry

Nuclear

Air/land/water

Air

Land

Water

=Marine

See also

References