1. Environmental Disasters
A visual journey

2. Donora, PA Smog Disaster
1948

3. This picture was taken at…
NOON on Oct. 29, 1948 in Donora, PA

4. Toxic London Fog
1952

6. Minamata Bay Mercury Poisoning
Late 1950’s

7. Minamata Bay

8. Mercury poisoning to central nervous system

9. Burning of the Cuyahoga River
1969

10. excerpted from Time Magazine, August 1, 1969
Boat caught in flaming Cuyahoga
Some River! Chocolate Brown, oily, bubbling with sub surface gases, it oozes rather than flows. "Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown," Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. "He decays."
The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- quite literally -- a fire hazard. A few weeks ago, the oil-slicked river burst into flames and burned with such intensity that two railroad bridges spanning it were nearly destroyed.

12. Santa Barbara Oil Spill
1969

16. Love Canal

19. Times Beach, MO

21. Maybe not a disaster… but worth noting 1979
Three-Mile Island
Maybe not a disaster…
but worth noting
1979

23. Partially melted core

24. Bhopal Incident
1984

27. Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
1986

31. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
1989

32. “The EXXON VALDEZ ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 24, 1989, spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into the marine environment. It is currently #53 on the all-time list of largest oil spills.”

35. First Gulf War Oil Spills
1991

38. More recently?

40. And even more recently…