The Exxon Valdez oil tanker, owned by ExxonMobil, set sail from the Valdez terminal for Long Beach , California (USA). At that time, it carried up to 41 million liters of crude.
On March 24, 1989, in the middle of a storm, the American tanker separated from the navigation corridor to avoid various blocks of ice that were adrift. After this maneuver, the commander orders the helmsman to put the ship on automatic pilot. This decision would be very expensive shortly after. The ship was drifting off course. Less than 30 minutes later, the Exxon Valdez runs aground on the Blight Reef , located a dozen meters deep, in the Prince William district on the coast of Alaska, an important fishing area.
In just a few hours, the tanker had released about 40.8 million liters of crude into the waters, practically all of what it was carrying. The spill was about half what the Prestige kicked out in the fall of 2002. It was the second largest oil spill in US history.
Consequences
Thousands of species were affected . The spill damaged approximately 2,000 kilometers of coastline, endangering 10 million birds, waterfowl, whales, otters, sea lions …
Following the accident, the oil tanker was repaired and renamed Exxon Mediterranean. It was sent for scrapping on August 2, 2012. The ecosystem has not yet recovered.
