Some of the most serious challenges to the environment occurred in the last few decades of the 20th century, catalyzing environmental concern around the globe. The most common environmental disasters were massive oil spills. The first major modern spill took place in 1967, when the tanker Torrey Canyon went aground near England and spilled about 30,000 tons of oil into the sea. More recently, the United States faced the worst oil spill in its history when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, dumping 200,000 barrels of oil into the water. More than a thousand miles of coastline were covered with oil, killing thousands of fish, birds, and other wildlife. Nuclear power plants also were the stages for several environmental disasters. In 1979, an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., caused some radioactive gas to enter the atmosphere. More than 144,000 people were evacuated but, fortunately, a major tragedy was averted. In 1986, the worst accident in nuclear power history occurred at a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, in what is now independent Ukraine. During that incident, radioactive material poured into the atmosphere, killing 30 people. The disaster with the highest human toll occurred in 1984, when about 50 tons of methyl isocyanate leaked into the air from a pesticide company in Bhopal, India. An estimated 2,500 people were killed. |