Torrey Canyon, Exxon Valdez, Amoco Cadiz, Haven, Erika, Prestige… these are some of the names belonging to the "black fleet", the oil tankers that over the past three decades, through their disastrous sinkings, have created a new type of catastrophe, this time entirely man-made: the oil slick.

Coastlines smeared by brown waves heaved with great effort from a dark, calm sea; seabirds rendered unrecognisable, turned into pathetic figures wrapped in a kind of dark treacle; volunteers in colourful overalls struggling to contain the advance of oily patches or shovelling beaches now thick with filth; fishermen and locals staring in dismay at a tragedy that was always expected to happen to someone else.

These are the images that all mass media transmit to us whenever an oil disaster occurs. Environmental, economic and employment damage and trauma. Events that transform an often magnificent landscape, distorting its shapes, sounds, smells and even its colours. Events that affect the health of those who live in those places, with consequences that also extend into the future and across areas wider than those directly struck by the oil slick.

And it is on water that oil spreads like an extremely thin, poisonous film, enveloping the sea like a membrane that reduces — and often entirely prevents — any exchange with the atmosphere. In this way, one tonne of crude oil can cover 12 square kilometres of liquid surface. And just one litre of "black gold" can be enough to render one million litres of water biologically unusable.

Environmental disasters caused by oil

In light of these figures, the data in the list of environmental disasters caused by oil — the worst oil spill incidents on record — appear all the more alarming. In chronological order.

Date	Tanker or platform	Location	Tonnes of oil spilled
18/3/1967	Torrey Canyon (grounding)	Cornwall, England	108,000/117,000
19/12/1972	Sea Star (collision/fire)	Gulf of Oman	115,000
9/8/1974	Metula	Strait of Magellan, Chile	54,000
15/12/1976	Argo Merchant	Nantucket Shoal, Massachusetts, USA	28,000
1978	Amoco Cadiz (grounding)	Brittany, France	203,000/230,000
19/7/1979	Atlantic Empress (collision)	Caribbean Sea, Tobago	125,700
19/7/1979	Aegean Captain (collision)	Caribbean Sea, Tobago	151,100
1979–1980	Ixtoc I (blowout)	Mexico	421,000/1,296,000
1980	Irenes Serenade (fire)	Greece	37,200/110,800
1980–1981	D-103 Libya (blowout)	Libya	127,000
1983	Nowruz Oil Field (blowout)	Persian Gulf	242,000/560,000
6/8/1983	Castillo de Bellver (fire and sinking)	South Africa	151,000/242,000
1985	Nova	Kharg Islands, Iran Gulf	70,000
1988	Storage Tank (blowout)	Monongahela River, USA	10,000
10/11/1988	Odissey	1,300 km from Nova Scotia, Canada	132,000
1989	Kharg 5 (storm, explosion)	Atlantic Ocean, 220 km off the coast of Morocco	70,000/80,000
3/1989	Exxon Valdez (grounding)	Prince William Sound, Alaska	38,800
1/1991	Iraq, Gulf War (deliberate release)	Persian Gulf	1,400,000
4/1991	Haven	Genoa, Italy	50,000
5/1991	ABT Summer (explosion)	Angola	260,000
21/7/1991	Tank Kirki	Pacific Ocean, west of Australia	18,000
1992	Katina	Maputo, Mozambique	72,000
2/3/1992	Fergana Valley	Uzbekistan	285,000
3/12/1992	Aegean Sea	La Coruña, Spain	80,000
1993	Braer (engine failure)	Shetland Islands, UK	85,000
31/3/1994	Seki	United Arab Emirates	16,000
15/2/1996	Sea Empress	South-west Wales	72,000
12/1997	Nakhodka	Sea of Japan	19,000
12/12/1999	Erika	Bay of Biscay, Brittany, France	15,000/25,000
1/2001	Jessica	Galápagos	240,000
13/11/2002	Prestige	Spain	77,000
28/7/2003	Tasman Spirit	Karachi, Pakistan	28,000/30,000
8/12/2004	MV Selendang Ayu	Unalaska Island, Alaska, USA	1,500
19/6/2006	Citgo Refinery	Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA	6,500
14/7/2006	Jiyeh power station	Lebanon	20,000/30,000
11/8/2006	Korea	Yellow Sea, South Korea	11,000
23/1/2010	Port Arthur	Texas	1,500
22/2/2010	River Lambro	Lombardy, Italy	3,000/5,000
20/4/2010	Deepwater Horizon	Gulf of Mexico	1,090,000