The Worst Man Made Disasters

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There are 1,060 hazardous waste sites on the listIn 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing
of the environmental Protection Agency, U.S.A.plant leaked 32 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate,
They have recently added a further 10 toxicin Bhopal, India. Thousands died and thousands
waste sites to the 527 contaminated propertiesmore were deformed, blinded, and disabled. More
which endanger life.than 2,000 bodies were cremated in one day. The
Here are just a few of the worst man-madesoil and water near the factory are toxic from
disasters, as toxic contamination is a world-widethe still leaking plant. There has been no attempt
problem and not limited to any one nation.to clean-up.
The most toxic place in the United States, Picher,Following nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, in
Oklahoma, was once the world's richest zinc andthe late 1970s, the U.S. government dug up
lead mining field, housing 20,000 people. Less than111,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil and dumped
25 people remain. Mountains of mining, leadit on Runit Island in a 350-foot wide crater
contaminated waste, loom over the empty town,created by the nuclear explosions. A huge,
which has a toxic water supply.foot-and-a-half-thick, 100,000-square-foot dome
Fishing boats rust in a vast, contaminated desertmade up of 358 massive concrete panels, was
wasteland, the Aral Sea, which was drainedbuilt over the site. The area is still radioactive.
empty by Soviet irrigation. Guiyu is the world'sA hole, 328 ft. wide, in the Turkmenistan desert,
second-most polluted place on the planet.has been continuously on fire, for 38 years. A
China's biggest e-waste village, where electronicSoviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a
trash is dismantled by hand to extract wires andmassive underground natural gas cavern, in 1971,
valuable parts. Circuit boards are burned, cookedcausing the ground to collapse and the entire
and soaked in acid to extract scraps of preciousdrilling rig to fall in. Poisonous fumes began leaking
metals.from the hole. To head off a potential deadly
Twice the size of Texas, the Pacific Rubbishcatastrophe, the Soviets set the hole aflame.
Vortex consists of 3.5 million tons of rubbish, 90%Due to health concerns Australia’s
of which is plastic debris, swirls between CaliforniaWittenoom, Pilbara, was officially closed down in
and Hawaii.1966. It was once the area’s largest town
Following gas drilling in Java, Indonesia, thatin the asbestos mining area, but is now a toxic
created a 'mud volcano', which killed 13 people, hotghost town.
sulfuric mud gushes continually from the ground.In 1992 Centralia, Pennsylvania's entire town was
The steaming mud pool covers over 25sq k andcondemned. An underground coal fire had ignited
is growing at an estimated 50,000 cubic meterssometime in 1962. In 1981 a 12-year-old boy fell
per day. Scientists say the mud will continueinto a 150-foot hole that suddenly appeared in his
erupting for another 30 years.back yard.
Once a copper mine, the Berkeley Pit LakeDecades of strip mining for phosphorus have
contains over 40 billion gallons of acidic water anddevastated over 80 % of Nauru's land, leaving it a
heavy metals. It is a serious hazard to migratingbarren wasteland of jagged limestone pinnacles up
birds.to 49 ft. high. Today Nauru has just a
The Chernobyl Nuclear Station contaminated150-meter-wide strip of fertile land left along one
millions of square miles and released radioactiveof its shores.
material into the air, when it exploded in 1986.Finally we have the Mexico Gulf oil spill, that is as
The entire area is a radioactive freeze frame ofyet unmeasurable.