On November 13, 2002 , off the Costa da Morte in Galicia, the Prestige monohull ship gave the warning that it suffered a breach on the starboard side of the hull and there was a leak of 77,000 tons of highly polluting fuel . Thus began what has been considered the third most expensive accident in history , behind the Columbia shuttle and the Chernobyl accident, and which still remains in the memory of the Spanish as an indelible stain .
What began as, according to the first statements of the Government, a small gap of 17 meters long would eventually continue to grow to 35 meters and would poison more than 2,000 kilometers of Spanish, French and Portuguese coasts. It had been decided to keep it as far as possible from the coast, but during the towing the ship broke in two and sank on November 19. The first spill accounted for about 6,000 tons of fuel and when it broke off, another 5,000 were added, which reached the coast due to the so-called ‘Christmas current’.
There were 90,566 tons of sand and crude oil that had to be removed only in the first year of work. Thousands of people from all over Spain and Europe came as volunteers who wanted to help out and reduce the possible disastrous effects that oil would cause. Without a doubt, their participation was key but the environmental damage had already been done and thousands of animal and plant species and their own ecosystem were the ones that paid the most for human incompetence . To this must be added the impact on the Galician lifestyle and fishing economy or the cost of trying to repair the disaster.
After ten years of trials and investigations, none of those directly responsible for the disaster actually paid the consequences of their decisions and actions. The members of the Government who took charge of the situation were harshly criticized for the mismanagement and attitude with which they dealt with it. The seriousness of the situation was clearly underestimated and adequate measures were not taken in time, which increased the subsequent consequences. So many years later, the environmental catastrophe of the Prestige must continue to be a reminder of the importance of caring for our environment for the population and an indelible sense of guilt for those responsible for all the “Prestiges” in the world.
