This article is a list of environmental disasters. In this context it is an annotated list of specific events caused by human activity that results in a negative effect on the environment.

Environmental disasters by category

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)

Agricultural

Main article: Environmental impact of agriculture

Africanized bees, known colloquially as "killer bees"
Mismanagement and shrinking of the Aral Sea
"Dirty dairying" in New Zealand
Dust Bowl in central United States (1930s)
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.
Gulf of Mexico dead zone
Salinity in Australia
Salinization of the Fertile Crescent
Salton Sea California, U.S.

Biodiversity

2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter
Chestnut blight
Indian vulture crisis due to Diclofenac
Deforestation of Easter Island
Destruction of the old growth forests
Devil facial tumour disease
Dutch Elm Disease
Emerald Ash Borer
Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef
Extinction of Australian megafauna
Four Pests Campaign of China, 1958
Ghost nets
Grounding of SS Makambo on Lord Howe Island
Gulf of Mexico dead zone
Invasive species in New Zealand
Introduction of the Nile perch into Lake Victoria in Africa, devastating indigenous fish species
Introduction of nutria to Louisiana
Kudzu in the United States
Loss of Louisiana Wetlands
Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows
Rabbits in Australia
Red imported fire ants
Reduction in the number of the American Bison
Shark finning
The Saemangeum Seawall
The loss of biodiversity of New Zealand

Human health

Agent Orange use by the United States during the Vietnam War, resulting in lasting serious health effects on the Vietnamese population, such as cancer, nervous system disorders, and countless related fatalities
Cancer Alley
Goiânia accident, human deaths resulting from dismantling a scrapped medical machine containing a source of radioactivity
Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks
Introduction of infectious diseases by Europeans causing the death of indigenous people during European colonization of the Americas
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.
Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows

Industrial

Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine killed 49 people and was estimated to have damaged almost $7 billion of property".^[2] 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".^[2]
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.^[3] Explosions and a fire have resulted in dangerous levels of radiation, sparking a stock market collapse and panic-buying in supermarkets.^[4]
Mayak nuclear waste storage tank explosion, (Chelyabinsk, Soviet Union, September 29, 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.^[5]
Windscale fire, United Kingdom, October 8, 1957. Fire ignites plutonium piles and contaminates surrounding dairy farms.^[6]
Soviet submarine K-431 accident, August 10, 1985 (10 people died and 49 suffered radiation injuries).^[7]
Soviet submarine K-19 accident, July 4, 1961 (8 deaths and more than 30 people were over-exposed to radiation).^[8]
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.
Three Mile Island, 1979 - It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. On the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale, it is rated Level 5 – Accident with Wider Consequences.
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
Hong Kong Plastic Disaster

Air

Land

Dust Bowl in central United States (1930s)
Contaminated soils in Mapua, New Zealand, due to the operation of an agricultural chemicals factory from 1932 to 1989
Basin F, a disposal site in the United States created in 1956 for contaminated liquid wastes from the chemical manufacturing operations of the Army and its lessee Shell Chemicals company
Coastal erosion in Louisiana
Nigeria gully erosion crisis, since before 1980
Exide lead contamination at seven locations in the United States, since 1989
Electronic waste in Guiyu, since the 1990s
2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump
In Thathri Disaster 2023, the land and residential houses started cracking in Nayi Basti Thathri of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Water

Amoco Cadiz oil spill off the coast of France in 1978
Cheakamus River derailment which polluted a river with caustic soda
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Diamond Alkali dumping of "bad batches" of the herbicide Agent Orange and byproducts of its production into the Passaic River during the 1960s and 1970s, contaminating river sediments with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, PCBs, and PAHs. Diamond Alkali was added to the EPA's National Priorities List in 1987 and cleanup of the Lower Passaic is still underway.^[9]
Draining and development of the Everglades
Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes in the 1990s
DuPont dumping of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in Parkersburg, West Virginia, USA 1951-2003.^[10]
Effects of polluted water in the Berkeley Pit in the United States
Gulf of Mexico dead zone
Ignition and conflagration (13 times from 1868 to 1969) of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, United States
The Jiyeh Power Station oil spill in the Mediterranean region
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.
Loss of Louisiana Wetlands due to Mississippi River levees, saltwater intrusion through manmade channels, timber harvesting, subsidence, and hurricane damage.
Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows pollution of Wabigoon River
Oder environmental disaster in 2022
Red Hill water crisis in Hawaiʻi, United States beginning in November 2021
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

Marine

References

^ Dunsmuir 10 years later. SF Chronicle. July 9, 2001.
^ ^a ^b Benjamin K. Sovacool. The costs of failure: A preliminary assessment of major energy accidents, 1907–2007, Energy Policy 36 (2008), p. 1806.
^ Weisenthal, Joe (11 March 2011). "Japan Declares Nuclear Emergency, As Cooling System Fails At Power Plant". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
^ "Blasts escalate Japan's nuclear crisis". World News Australia. March 16, 2011. Archived from the original on April 7, 2011.
^ Samuel Upton Newtan. Nuclear War I and Other Major Nuclear Disasters of the 20th Century 2007, pp. 237–240.
^ Benjamin K. Sovacool and Christopher Cooper. Nuclear Nonsense: Why Nuclear Power is no Answer to Climate Change and the World's Post-Kyoto Energy Challenges, William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, Vol 33:1, 2008, p. 109.
^ The Worst Nuclear Disasters
^ Strengthening the Safety of Radiation Sources Archived 2009-03-26 at the Wayback Machine p. 14.
^ "Diamond Alkali Superfund Home Page". US Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 26 February 2024.
^ Rich, Nathaniel (2016-01-06). "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-07.

Disasters

Overview

Disasters

Natural disasters – list by death toll

Geological

Mass wasting	Landslide Avalanche Mudflow Debris flow
Earthquake (List)	Seismic hazard Seismic risk Soil liquefaction
Volcano eruption	Pyroclastic flow Lahar Volcanic ash
Natural erosion	Sinkhole

Hydrological

Flood (List)	Coastal flood Flash flood Storm surge
Other	Tsunami Megatsunami Limnic eruption

Meteorological

Temperature	Blizzard Cold wave Ice storm Heat wave
Drought	Megadrought
Cyclonic storms	Bomb cyclone Thunderstorm (Hail) Tornado (Tornado outbreak) Tropical cyclone
Other	Derecho Wildfire Firestorm ARkStorm

Astronomical

Unrelated to natural hazards

Accidents

Transport	Rail Maritime Shipwreck Air Spaceflight
Industrial	Structural failures and collapses Bridge Dam Nuclear by death toll Civilian radiation Civilian nuclear Military nuclear Oil spills Levee breach Mast and tower Infrastructure
Health	Famine List Famine scales Epidemic list Pandemic

Man-made

Preparation

Countermeasures

Media

Disaster film (List of disaster films)

Organizations

WikiProject