List of environmental disasters

Agricultural

Mismanagement and shrinking of the Aral Sea

Salinity in Australia

Salinization of the Fertile Crescent

The Dust Bowl in Canada and the United States (1934–1939)

The Great sparrow campaign; sparrows were eliminated from Chinese farms, which caused locusts to swarm the farms and contributed to a famine which killed 38 million people.

Africanized bees, known colloquially as "killer bees"

"Dirty dairying" in New Zealand

Biodiversity

Chestnut blight

Extinction of American megafauna

Extinction of Australian megafauna

Deforestation of Easter Island

Destruction of the old growth forests

Rabbits in Australia

Red imported fire ants

Dutch Elm Disease

Devil facial tumour disease

Reduction in the number of the American Bison

Introduction of the Nile perch into Lake Victoria in Africa, decimating indigenous fish species

The Saemangeum Seawall

Emerald Ash Borer

Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef

2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter

Invasive species in New Zealand

The loss of Biodiversity of New Zealand

Ghost nets

Grounding of SS Makambo on Lord Howe Island

Shark finning

Decline of vultures in India due to Diclofenac leading to increased incidence of rabies

Extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger

Human health

Introduction of the Bubonic Plague (the Plague of Justinian) in Europe from Africa in the 7th century resulting in the death of up to 60% (100 million) of the population.

Introduction of the Bubonic Plague (the Black Death) in Europe from Central Asia in the 14th century resulting in the death of up to 60% (200 million) of the population and recurring until the 18th century.

Introduction of infectious diseases by Europeans causing the death of indigenous people during European colonization of the Americas

Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks

Goiânia accident, human deaths resulting from dismantling a scrapped medical machine containing a source of radioactivity

Industrial

Coordinates of the Industrial Environmental Disasters found on this page, shown in Google. Complete with the Wikipedia descriptions listed below built into each location.

Spring Valley, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. which was used as a chemical weapons testing ground during World War I.

Minamata disease - mercury poisoning in Japan (1950s & 1960s)

Ontario Minamata disease in Canada

Itai-itai disease, due to cadmium poisoning in Japan

Love Canal toxic waste site

Seveso disaster (1976), chemical plant explosion, caused highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populations

Times Beach, Missouri (1983) the town was completely evacuated due to a dioxin contamination

Bhopal disaster (December 3, 1984, India), leak of methyl isocyanate that took place in 1984 resulted in more than 22,000 deaths.

Sandoz chemical spill into the Rhine river (1986)

United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites in the United States

AZF Explosion at a Toulouse chemical factory (2001)

2005 Jilin chemical plant explosions

The Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens sites in the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, known as the largest toxic waste site in North America.

Release of lead dust into Esperance Harbour.

Release of cyanide, heavy metals and acid into the Alamosa River, Colorado from the Summitville mine, causing the death of all aquatic life 17 miles downstream.

Release of 20,000 gallons of lethal chemicals (metam sodium, tradename Vapam) into the Upper Sacramento River near Dunsmuir, causing the death of all aquatic life within a 38-mile radius.

Release of CFCs resulting in ozone depletion

Release of sulfur dioxide after a fire at the Al-Mishraq plant in Iraq

The Phillips Disasters

Health issues on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation due to chemical factories

Environmental issues with the Three Gorges Dam

Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill

The Great Smog in London in 1952

Mining

1947 Centralia mine disaster, Illinois

Centralia mine fire, Pennsylvania, 1962

Phosphate mining in Nauru

Phosphate mining in St. Pierre Island

Talvivaara gypsum pond leak, Finland, 2012

Mount Polley mine disaster, British Columbia, 2014

Bento Rodrigues dam disaster, Samarco mine tailings dam failure, which spread for over 2 states, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, all the way to the Atlantic sea. Brazil, 2015

The "Door to Hell" (also known as the Gate to Hell, the Crater of Fire, Darvaza Crater), a natural gas field in Derweze, Turkmenistan continuously burning.

Coal mining

Martin County sludge spill

Mountaintop removal mining

Upper Big Branch Mine disaster

Oil industry

Environmental issues in the Niger Delta relating to the oil industry

Lago Agrio oil field issues

Exxon Valdez oil spill

Arctic Refuge drilling controversy

Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Sidoarjo mud flow triggered by Lapindo Brantas gas exploration in 2006; East Java, Indonesia

Leaded gasoline introduced 1920s; phased out globally by 2012.

Vila Parisi (Brazil)

Nuclear

Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine, "killed at least 4056 people and damaged almost $7 billion of property". Radioactive fallout from the accident concentrated near Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and at least 350,000 people were forcibly resettled away from these areas. After the accident, "traces of radioactive deposits unique to Chernobyl were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere".

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster: Following an earthquake, tsunami, and failure of cooling systems at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and issues concerning other nuclear facilities in Japan on March 11, 2011, a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20 km of the plant were evacuated. Explosions and a fire have resulted in dangerous levels of radiation, sparking a stock market collapse and panic-buying in supermarkets.

Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion, (Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union, 29 September 1957), 200+ people died and 270,000 people were exposed to dangerous radiation levels. Over thirty small communities had been removed from Soviet maps between 1958 and 1991.

Windscale fire, United Kingdom, October 8, 1957. Fire ignites plutonium piles and contaminates surrounding dairy farms.

Soviet submarine K-431 accident, August 10, 1985 (10 people died and 49 suffered radiation injuries).

Soviet submarine K-19 accident, July 4, 1961. (8 deaths and more than 30 people were over-exposed to radiation).

Nuclear testing at Moruroa and Fangataufa in the Pacific Ocean

Fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands

The health of Downwinders

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.

Hanford Nuclear, 1986 – The U.S. government declassifies 19,000 pages of documents indicating that between 1946 and 1986, the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, released thousands of US gallons of radioactive liquids. Radioactive waste was both released into the air and flowed into the Columbia River (which flows to the Pacific Ocean). In 2014, the Hanford legacy continues with billions of dollars spent annually in a seemingly endless cleanup of leaking underground

Air/land/water

Proliferation of plastic shopping bags

Air

The Donora Smog of 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania in the United States

The Great Smog of 1952, which killed 4,000 Londoners

The 1983 Melbourne dust storm

The 1997 Southeast Asian haze

The 2005 Malaysian haze

The 2006 Southeast Asian haze

Yokkaichi asthma in Japan

Health problems due to the Jinkanpo Atsugi Incinerator in Japan

Kuwaiti oil fires

Land

The Dust Bowl of Canada and the United States

Contaminated soils in Mapua, New Zealand due to the operation of an agricultural chemicals factory

Basin F, a disposal site in the United States for contaminated liquid wastes from the chemical manufacturing operations of the Army and its lessee Shell Chemical Company

Exide lead contamination in southeast Los Angeles County, California, United States, from a battery recycling plant that emitted lead, arsenic and other dangerous pollutants

2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump

Nigeria gully erosion crisis

Water

Sandoz chemical spill, severely polluting the Rhine in 1986

Selenium poisoning of wildlife due to farm runoff used to create Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, and the artificial wetland

The Jiyeh Power Station oil spill in the Mediterranean region

Effects of polluted water in the Berkeley Pit in the United States

Ignition and conflagration (13 times from 1868 to 1969) of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, United States

Cheakamus River derailment which polluted a river with caustic soda

Draining and development of the Everglades

Loss of Louisiana Wetlands due to Mississippi River levees, saltwater intrusion through manmade channels, timber harvesting, subsidence, and hurricane damage.

Lake Okeechobee is heavily polluted and during extreme events releases large volumes of polluted water into the St. Lucie River estuary and the Caloosahatchee River estuary.

Marine

Coral bleaching

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone due to high-nutrient fertilizer runoff from the Midwest that is drained through the Mississippi River.

The artificial Osborne Reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the United States

Dumping of conventional and chemical munitions in Beaufort's Dyke, a sea trench between Northern Ireland and Scotland

Marine debris

Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef

Nurdles, plastic pellet typically under 5mm in diameter

Friendly Floatees

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Minamata disease, mercury poisoning in Japan

Mercury in fish

Ocean acidification due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions