2019年化学周 - Worst Environmental Disasters
1. Dust
Bowl
Around World War I, homesteaders
flocked in mass to the southern Great Plains, where they replaced the native
grasses that held the topsoil in place with wheat and other crops. Eschewing
sustainable agricultural practices, such as crop rotation, they managed to reap
big harvests during the wet years of the 1920s. But when a prolonged drought
struck in the 1930s, the now eroded and nutrient-poor soil began blowing up
into huge dust clouds that ravaged the landscape. As one “black blizzard” hit
after another, harmful dust particles accumulated in people’s lungs, causing
hundreds of deaths and sickening thousands. Dead livestock and wildlife
littered the ground. By the time the drought ended, up to one-third of the most
affected homesteaders had fled the Southern Plains for greener pastures.
2. Great Smog
As a bitter cold snap gripped London
late in 1952, its inhabitants used unusually large quantities of coal to heat
their homes. Soot poured out of their chimneys, mixing with factory and power
plant emissions to form an acrid-smelling fog that hovered over the city from
December 5 to December 9. Trapped in by a high-pressure weather system, as well
as the lack of wind, this toxic stew reduced visibility to near zero. Abandoned
cars dotted the roads, movie theatres closed because no one could see the screen
and some people even accidentally stumbled into the Thames River. Worst of all,
about 4,000 Londoners died of respiratory ailments over those few days, and up
to 8,000 more would succumb in the months that followed. Recent research shows that those in the womb at the
time of the so-called Great Smog of 1952 grew up performing worse in
school and were less likely to hold a job than their peers.
3.
Minamata Disease
In the early 1950s, the residents of
Minamata, a small coastal city in southern Japan, began observing some
startling animal behaviour. Cats would suddenly foam at the mouth, dance around
wildly and throw themselves into the sea, whereas birds would crash land and
fish would inexplicably go belly up. Before long, humans too were suffering
from what became known as Minamata Disease, slurring their speech, stumbling
about and having trouble with simple tasks, such as buttoning buttons. The
culprit finally emerged in 1959, when it was determined that the chemical
company Chisso Corporation, one of Minamata’s biggest employers, was dumping
mercury into the sea as part of its manufacturing process and that this toxin
was poisoning people (and animals) who ate the local seafood. Chisso continued
releasing mercury-tainted wastewater until 1968, reportedly causing at least
2,000 deaths, as well as birth defects, paralysis and other maladies.
4.
Bhopal
5.
Chernobyl
6.
Kuwaiti Oil Fires
Seeking revenge for his imminent
defeat, Saddam Hussein ordered retreating Iraqi troops to set fire to about 650
Kuwaiti oil wells at the tail end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Oily smoke
plumes shot high up into the sky, darkening the sun and making breathing
difficult for those who ventured outside. One U.S. environmentalist compared it
to “standing behind the exhaust pipes of hundreds of malfunctioning diesel
trucks.” Meanwhile, black rain, a mix of natural precipitation and smoke
particles, fell as far away as the Himalayas; hundreds of oil lakes up to four
inches deep blotted the landscape, fatally luring in birds who confused them
for water; and a layer of “tarcrete,” sand and gravel combined with oil and
soot, covered almost 5 per cent of Kuwait’s territory. By the time the last of
the blazes were extinguished that November, an estimated 1 billion to 1.5
billion barrels of oil had spilt out and more than 100 people were dead,
including 92 Senegalese soldiers whose transport plane crashed in the
smoke-blackened skies. Immediately thereafter, Hussein initiated another
environmental disaster, draining the vast marshlands of southern Iraq in order
to suppress a Shiite rebellion.
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