The 10 biggest oil spills in history

The 10 biggest oil spills in history : Because of human errors, the use of some old and damaged equipment, and a little bad luck, the process of extracting oil from the earth can turn into an environmental disaster.

Oil spills happen when hydrocarbon liquids such as oil spill into the seas or oceans, and they are highly toxic waste that can pollute the water and kill life in it.

Most of the time these leaks happen for unintended reasons, but the biggest leak in history was not.

Below we take a quick look at the largest oil spills in history.

The biggest oil spill in history

The oil spill of the second Gulf War remains to this day the largest oil spill in history in terms of the volume of oil spilled.

This spill occurred during the Gulf War between Iraq and the coalition forces led by the United States, and the volume of oil that was spilled in that accident amounted to more than 380 million gallons.

There are sources that indicate that the volume of the leak amounted to 520 million gallons of oil, and in both cases, this leakage remains the largest in history.

The reason for the leak

In 1990, the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to invade Kuwait as an Iraqi province that must be restored to the homeland, and he actually succeeded in that. Shortly after that, an international coalition was formed that included Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Britain, France and the United States with the aim of removing the Iraqi forces from Kuwaiti territory.

Not all negotiations between the representatives of the Iraqi army and the coalition succeeded, thus starting the war that would later be known as the “Second Gulf War.”

The coalition forces have already liberated Kuwait, and in a last-ditch effort to deter enemy ships from approaching the coast, the Iraqis released hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf.

Lakeview Jesher leak

An oil explosion that occurred in the US state of California in the year 1910 resulted in the largest accidental oil spill in history.

Over the 18 months after the spill, the explosion had sent nearly 378 million gallons of oil to the surface.

The authorities and residents tried to contain the spill, and they succeeded to a large extent with the least possible damage to the surrounding environment.

The inhabitants built a dam to prevent the seepage from spreading, especially to protect Lake Buena Vista, and with few losses, the oil was still present at the site even a hundred years later.