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.

Environmental disasters by category

Agricultural

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

s, known colloquially as "killer bees" * Mismanagement and shrinking of the

Aral Sea The Aral Sea () was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhst ...

* " Dirty dairying" in New Zealand *

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 natural factors (severe drought) and hum ...

in central United States (1930s) * 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. * Gulf of Mexico dead zone *

Salinity in Australia Soil salinity and dryland salinity are two problems degrading the environment of Australia. Salinity is a concern in most states, but especially in the south-west of Western Australia.

* Salinization of the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent () is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include ...

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly salinity, saline endorheic lake in Riverside County, California, Riverside and Imperial County, California, Imperial counties in Southern California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the S ...

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 ...

Indian vulture crisis Nine species of Old World vulture, vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades. In the early 1980s, three species of ''Gyps'' vultures (the white-ru ...

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 can be taken orally (swallowed by mouth), inserted rectally as a ...

* Deforestation of

Easter Island Easter Island (, ; , ) 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 renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...

* Destruction of the

old growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

s * Devil facial tumour disease * Dutch Elm Disease * Emerald Ash Borer *

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 at Cape York to the town of Bundaberg, is composed of roughly 2,900 individual reefs and 940 islands and cays ...

* Extinction of

Australian megafauna The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia (continent), Australia during the Pleistocene, Pleistocene Epoch. Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, as part of the broader global L ...

* 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 Port ...

* Gulf of Mexico dead zone * Invasive species in New Zealand * Introduction of the

Nile perch The Nile perch (''Lates niloticus''), also known as the African snook, Goliath perch, African barramundi, Goliath barramundi, Giant lates or the Victoria perch, is a species of freshwater fish in family Latidae of order Perciformes. It is wides ...

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 tropics, tropical lake, and the world's second-largest fresh water lake by surface are ...

in Africa, devastating indigenous fish species * Introduction of

nutria The nutria () or coypu () (''Myocastor coypus'') is a herbivore, herbivorous, semiaquatic rodent from South America. Classified for a long time as the only member of the family Myocastoridae, ''Myocastor'' has since been included within Echimy ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

Kudzu in the United States Kudzu is an invasive plant species in the United States, introduced from Asia with devastating environmental consequences, earning it the nickname "the vine that ate the South". It has been spreading rapidly in the Southern United States, "easi ...

* Loss of Louisiana Wetlands * Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows * Rabbits in Australia *

Red imported fire ant ''Solenopsis invicta'', the fire ant, or red imported fire ant (RIFA), is a species of ant native to South America. A member of the genus ''Fire ant, Solenopsis'' in the subfamily Myrmicinae, it was Species description, described by Swiss ento ...

s * Reduction in the number of the

American Bison The American bison (''Bison bison''; : ''bison''), commonly known as the American buffalo, or simply buffalo (not to be confused with Bubalina, true buffalo), is a species of bison that is endemic species, endemic (or native) to North America. ...

* *

Shark finning Shark finning is the act of removing fins from sharks and discarding the rest of the shark back into the ocean. This act is prohibited in many countries. The sharks are often still alive when discarded, but without their fins.Spiegel, J. (200 ...

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

Human health

Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical uses of 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 1962 to 1971. T ...

use by the United States during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

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

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

, nervous system disorders, and countless related fatalities *

Cancer Alley Cancer Alley is the regional nickname given to an stretch of land along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the River Parishes of Louisiana, which contains over 200 petrochemical plants and refineries. As of 2012, th ...

Goiânia accident The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil, after an unsecured radiation therapy, radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. ...

, human deaths resulting from dismantling a scrapped medical machine containing a source of radioactivity * Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks * 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 colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe a ...

* 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) 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. * Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows

Industrial

* 1912 Itai-itai disease, due to cadmium poisoning in Japan * 1948 Donora smog * 1952 The Great Smog in London * 1962 to 1970 Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows * 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 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 In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...

heavy metals upright=1.2, Crystals of 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 is a controversial and ambiguous term for metallic elements with relatively h ...

and

acid An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...

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 () 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–San Joaquin River D ...

at the Cantara Loop near Dunsmuir, California, 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, Someș River by the gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government. The pol ...

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 The Jilin chemical plant explosions were a series of explosions which occurred on November 13, 2005, in the No.102 Petrochemical industry, Petrochemical Plant in Jilin City, Jilin Province, People's Republic of China, China, over the period of an ...

* 2007 Release of lead dust into Esperance Harbour *

2008 Guangxi chemical plant explosions A series of explosions caused by an industrial accident occurred on August 26, 2008 in Yizhou city in Guangxi province in southwest China. The disaster occurred at a factory owned by Guangxi Guangwei Chemical Co. in the development zone of Yi ...

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; it has chemical symbol, 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. Like z ...

contaminated the Guangxi Longjiang river (龙江河) and water supply. * 2015 Shenzhen landslide China, a landslide of

construction waste Construction waste or debris is any kind of debris from the construction process. Different government agencies have clear definitions. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA defines construction and demolition mate ...

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 due to chemical factories *

Love Canal Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, infamous as the location of a landfill that became the site of an environmental disaster discovered in 1977. Decades of dumping toxic chemicals killed residents and harm ...

toxic waste site *

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 cases, insanity, ...

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

ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a lowered total amount of ozone in Earth, Earth's upper atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone layer) around Earth's polar ...

* Spring Valley, which was used as a

chemical weapons A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as ...

testing ground during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. * 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 United States Environmental Pro ...

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 in California, from 1893 to 1942 * Lead & Zinc mining in northeast Oklahoma / southeast Kansas / southwest Missouri, from 1900s to 1960s * Copper mining in Tasmania, from 1893 to 1994 * Phosphate mining in Nauru, 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 The Aberfan disaster () was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rai ...

, collapse of a coal mining waste pile in Wales, 1966 *

Tui mine The Tui mine is an abandoned mine on the western slopes of Te Aroha, Mount Te Aroha in the Kaimai Range of New Zealand. It was considered to be the most contaminated site in the country, following the cleanup of the former Fruitgrowers Chemical ...

, tailings dam from the now abandoned in New Zealand, 1966 to 2013 * Darvaza gas crater in Derweze,

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, burning since 1971 * Uranium mining controversy in Kakadu National Park in Australia, 1981 to 2009 * Ok Tedi environmental disaster in Papua New Guinea beginning in 1984 * Omai gold mine tailing dam breach in Guyana, 1995 * Marcopper mining disaster in the Philippines, March 1996 * Doñana disaster, 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 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 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, 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 oil spill in California, 1910 –1911 * Leaded gasoline introduced 1920s; phased out globally by 2012. * Greenpoint oil spill in Brooklyn, New York, 1940s–1980 * Mississippi River oil spill (1962–1963) * Torrey Canyon oil spill off the SW coast of the United Kingdom, February 1967 * Lago Agrio oil field 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 ( ''khalīj ʿumān''; ''daryâ-ye omân''), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran ( ''khalīj makrān''; ''daryâ-ye makrān''), is a gulf in the Indian Ocean that connects the Arabian Sea with th ...

, 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, since 1977 *

Amoco Cadiz ''Amoco Cadiz'' was an oil tanker owned by Amoco, Amoco Transport Corp and transporting crude oil for Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Oil. Operating under the Liberian flag, she ran aground on 16 March 1978 on Portsall, Portsall Rocks, from the coast ...

shipwreck and oil spill off the coast of

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

, France, March 1978 *

Ixtoc I oil spill Ixtoc 1 was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig ''Sedco 135'' in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters deep. On 3 June 1979, the well suffe ...

into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

, June 1979 * SS Atlantic Empress 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, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

, August 1979 * MT Independența collision and spill near

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, November 1979 * Nowruz oil spills into the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

, 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 a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, November 1988 *

Exxon Valdez oil spill The ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when ''Exxon Valdez'', an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Be ...

in the Prince William Sound,

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

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

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

, March 1992 * MV Braer shipwreck and oil spill at the

Shetland Islands Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the Uni ...

, 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 The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill was an environmental disaster off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico, on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum in ...

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 *

Norilsk oil spill The Norilsk diesel oil spill was an industrial disaster near Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It began on 29 May 2020 when a fuel storage tank at Norilsk-Taimyr Energy's Thermal Power Plant No. 3 (owned by Nornickel) failed, flooding local ...

in Siberia in Russia in between May and June 2020. * MV Wakashio oil spill in south Mauritius, since July 2020 * El Palito oil spill off the coast of Venezuela, since July 2020

Nuclear

Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, the no. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Ukraine), exploded. With dozens of direct casualties, it is one of only ...

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 and British 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 Ce ...

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

Energy Policy Energy policies are the government's strategies and decisions regarding the Energy production, production, Energy distribution, distribution, and World energy supply and consumption, consumption of energy within a specific jurisdiction. Energy ...

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

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

: Following an earthquake, tsunami, and failure of cooling systems at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant 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 a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

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

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk; , is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, seventh-largest city in Russia, with a population ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, 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 The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The fire was in Unit 1 of ...

, 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). * 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 and Fangataufa in the Pacific Ocean * Fallout from the

Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...

nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands * The health of

Downwinders Downwinders were individuals and communities, in the United States, in the intermountain West between the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho who were ex ...

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civili ...

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 The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to enable prompt communication of safety significant information in case of nuclear accidents. The s ...

, 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. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...

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 bag In use by consumers worldwide since the 1960s, shopping bags made from various kinds of plastic, are variously called plastic shopping bags, carrier bags, or plastic grocery bags. They are sometimes referred to as single-use bags—referring to c ...

s * Hong Kong Plastic Disaster

Air

* The 1983 Melbourne dust storm * The 1997 Southeast Asian haze * The 2005 Malaysian haze * The 2006 Southeast Asian haze * The 2016 Great Smog of Delhi * The 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires *

* The Donora Smog of 1948 * The Great Smog of 1952 * Health problems due to the Jinkanpo Atsugi Incinerator * Kuwaiti oil fires * Yokkaichi asthma

Land

in central United States (1930s) * Contaminated soils in Māpua, New Zealand, due to the operation of an agricultural chemicals factory from 1932 to 1989 * Basin F, 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 * Coastal erosion in Louisiana * Nigeria gully erosion crisis, since before 1980 *

Exide lead contamination Exide was one of the world's largest producers, distributors and Battery recycling, recyclers of Lead–acid battery, lead–acid batteries. Lead–acid batteries are used in automobiles, golf carts, fork-lifts, electric cars and motorcycles. Th ...

at seven locations in the United States, since 1989 * Electronic waste in Guiyu, since the 1990s * 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump * In Thathri Disaster 2023, the land and residential houses started cracking in Nayi Basti Thathri of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Water

* Amoco Cadiz oil spill off the coast of France in 1978 * Cheakamus River derailment which polluted a river with caustic soda *

* Diamond Alkali dumping of "bad batches" of the herbicide

and byproducts of its production into the

Passaic River The Passaic River ( or ) is a river, approximately long, in North Jersey, northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburb ...

during the 1960s and 1970s, contaminating river sediments with

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-''p-''dioxin (TCDD) is a polychlorinated dibenzo''-p-''dioxin (sometimes shortened, though inaccurately, to simply ''dioxin'') with the chemical formula CHClO. Pure TCDD is a colorless solid with no distinguishable ...

, PCBs, and PAHs. Diamond Alkali was added to the EPA's National Priorities List in 1987 and cleanup of the Lower Passaic is still underway. *

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 wetlands in southern Florida, for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the m ...

* Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes in the 1990s *

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

dumping of

perfluorooctanoic acid Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; conjugate acid, conjugate base perfluorooctanoate; also known colloquially as C8, from its chemical formula C8HF15O2) is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in ch ...

(PFOA) in

Parkersburg, West Virginia Parkersburg is a city in Wood County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's List of municipalities in West Virginia ...

, USA 1951-2003. * Effects of polluted water in the Berkeley Pit in the United States * Gulf of Mexico dead zone * Ignition and conflagration (13 times from 1868 to 1969) of the

Cuyahoga River The Cuyahoga River (see ) 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 mu ...

in Ohio, United States * The Jiyeh Power Station oil spill in the Mediterranean region *

Lake Okeechobee Lake Okeechobee ( ) is the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the List of largest lakes of the United States by area, eighth-largest natural freshwater lake among the 50 states of the United States and the second-largest ...

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 enviro ...

and the

Caloosahatchee River The Caloosahatchee River is a river on the southwest Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States, approximately long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National ...

estuary. * Loss of Louisiana Wetlands due to Mississippi River levees, saltwater intrusion through manmade channels, timber harvesting, subsidence, and hurricane damage. * Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows pollution of Wabigoon River * Oder environmental disaster in 2022 * Red Hill water crisis in Hawaiʻi, United States beginning in November 2021 * Sandoz chemical spill, severely polluting the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

in 1986 *

Selenium Selenium is a chemical element; it has symbol (chemistry), symbol Se and atomic number 34. It has various physical appearances, including a brick-red powder, a vitreous black solid, and a grey metallic-looking form. It seldom occurs in this elem ...

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 Surface runoff, runoff from farmland in California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. The irrigation water is transported to t ...

, and the artificial wetland

=Marine

= *

Coral bleaching Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to loss of Symbiosis, symbiotic algae and Photosynthesis, photosynthetic pigments. This loss of pigment can be caused by various stressors, such as changes in water temperature, light, ...

* 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 most populous city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the ...

, in the United States * Dumping of conventional and chemical munitions in Beaufort's Dyke, a sea trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland *

Marine debris Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created solid material that has deliberately or accidentally been released in seas or the ocean. Floating oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and on coastlines, freque ...

* Nurdles, 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 ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions * 2022 Caspian seal die-off * Industrial waste dumping in Central Vietnam from Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, which kills tons of marine creatures and destroys the ecosystem

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Environmental disasters * Environmental Disasters Pollution events by year