List of environmental disasters

This page 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.

Main article: Environmental disaster

See also: List of environmental issues

Environmental disasters by category

Agricultural

• Salinity in Australia
• Salinization of the Fertile Crescent
• The Dust Bowl 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 resulted in a famine which killed 38 million people.
• Africanized bees, known colloquially as "killer bees"
• Central Plains Water scheme in New Zealand
• Mismanagement of the Aral Sea
• "Dirty dairying" in New Zealand
• Hedgerow removal in the United Kingdom

Biodiversity

• Extinction of American megafauna
• Extinction of Australian megafauna
• Deforestation of Easter Island
• Destruction of the old growth forests
• Rabbits in Australia
• Red imported fire ants
• Reduction in the number of the American Bison
• Introduction of the Nile perch into Lake Victoria in Africa, decimating indigenous fish species
• The Saemangeum Seawall
• Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef
• 2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter
• Invasive species in New Zealand
• The loss of biodiversity of New Zealand
• Ghost nets
• Grounding of SS Makambo on Lord Howe Island
• Shark finning
• Decline of vultures in India due to Diclofenac leading to increased incidence of rabies

Coal

• Martin County sludge spill
• Tennessee coal sludge spill

Human health

• Introduction of infectious diseases by Europeans causing the death of indigenous people during European colonization of the Americas
• Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks
• Goiânia accident, human deaths resulting from dismantling a scrapped medical machine containing a source of radioactivity

Industrial

• Minamata disease - mercury poisoning in Japan (1950s & 1960s)
• Ontario Minamata disease in Canada
• Itai-itai disease, due to cadmium poisoning in Japan
• Love Canal toxic waste site
• Seveso disaster (1976), chemical plant explosion, caused highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations
• Bhopal disaster
• Sandoz chemical spill into the Rhine river (1986)
• United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites in the United States
• AZF Explosion at a Toulouse chemical factory (2001)
• 2005 Jilin chemical plant explosions
• The 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.
• Release of lead dust into Esperance Harbour.
• Release of cyanide, heavy metals and acid into the Alamosa River, Colorado from the Summitville mine, causing the death of all marine life within a 17 mile radius.
• Release of 20,000 gallons of lethal chemicals (metam sodium, tradename Vapam) into the Upper Sacramento River near Dunsmuir, causing the death of all marine life within a 38 mile radius.
• Release of CFC's resulting in ozone depletion
• Release of sulfer dioxide after a fire at the Al-Mishraq plant in Iraq
• The Phillips Disasters
• Villa Parisi (Brazil)
• Health issues on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation due to chemical factories
• Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam
• Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill

Mining

• Sulfur wastes in Chañaral, Chile
• The Ok Tedi environmental disaster in Papua New Guinea
• Collapse of a colliery waste tip in Aberfan, Wales
• Mining at Cerro de San Pedro in Mexico by Minera San Xavier
• Lead dust from the Magellan Metals mine in Australia
• Failure of a toxic waste dam at the Aznalcollar mine in Spain
• Uranium mining controversy in Kakadu National Park in Australia
• The proposed Cypress Mine in New Zealand
• The tailings dam from the now abandoned Tui mine in New Zealand

Oil industry

• Environmental issues in the Niger Delta relating to the oil industry
• Lago Agrio oil field issues
• Arctic Refuge drilling controversy

Nuclear

• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Chernobyl disaster in Russia
• Three Mile Island accident in the United States
• Nuclear testing at Moruroa and Fangataufa in the Pacific Ocean
• Windscale fire in the United Kingdom
• Fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands
• The health of Downwinders

See also: List of civilian nuclear accidents, List of military nuclear accidents, and List of civilian radiation accidents

Pollution

• Proliferation of plastic shopping bags

Air

• The Donora Smog of 1948 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 2005 Malaysian haze
• The 2006 Southeast Asian haze
• Yokkaichi asthma in Japan
• Health problems due to the Jinkanpo Atsugi Incinerator in Japan
• Kuwaiti oil fires

Land

• The Dust Bowl of Canada and the United States
• Contaminated soils in Mapua, New Zealand due to the operation of an agricultural chemicals factory
• Basin F, a disposal site in the United States for contaminated liquid wastes from the chemical manufacturing operations of the Army and its lessee Shell Chemical Company
• 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste spill
• Atari video game burial

Water

Freshwater

• Selenium poisoning of wildlife due to farm runoff used to create Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, an the artificial wetland
• The Jiyeh Power Station oil spill in the Mediterranean region
• Effects of polluted water in the Berkeley Pit in the United States
• Cheakamus River derailment which polluted a river with caustic soda
• Draining and development of the Everglades

Marine

• Coral bleaching
• The artificial Osborne Reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the United States
• Dumping of conventional and chemical munitions in Beaufort's Dyke, a sea trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland
• Marine debris
• Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef
• Nurdles, plastic pellet typically under 5mm in diameter
• Friendly Floatees
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• Minamata disease, mercury poisoning in Japan
• Mercury in fish
• Ocean acidification due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions

See also: List of oil spills

See also

• Natural disaster
• Timeline of environmental events
• Index of environmental articles
• Ecophagy, the consuming of an ecosystem

External links

• Environmental disaster videos