快猫短视频

ON 24 March 1989, the Exxon Valdez supertanker hit a reef off the southern coast of Alaska, releasing around 35,000 tonnes of oil into Prince William Sound. As we reported on 6 April of that year, it was the largest spill on record in the US.

Even back then, though, it was by no means the biggest in the world in terms of the quantity of oil spilled. But our report gave some inkling of why it has come to be acknowledged as among the worst-ever environmental disasters.

The spill happened in 鈥渙ne of the world鈥檚 most unspoilt but fragile ecosystems鈥�, we wrote, in an area with teeming with wildlife. It was very hard to remove the oil from beaches and inlets, where it soaked into the loose sand and stone. 鈥淚n the more sheltered embayments鈥� long-term impacts may stretch out three to five years,鈥� said one conservationist. Overall, we predicted the recovery would take between 18 months and 10 years.

That proved optimistic. As the slick spread along the Alaskan coast, countless seabirds, otters, seals and other large animals were killed, and hundreds of species of invertebrates were affected. Estimates for salmon and herring deaths ran into the billions, and the local fishing industry collapsed. Although most of the oil had dispersed within a few years, . Some, such as the sea otter, didn鈥檛 return to pre-spill numbers for 25 years. Oil still remains today in many places, buried in the rocks and sand.

Some good did come of the incident, however. It led to the US , which placed much greater responsibility on oil companies for the prevention and clean-up of spills in US waters. And even though a greater volume of oil is being transported today, over the past few decades and are now at an all-time low.