Photo: www.stuff.co.nz Salvage ships flank the righted Costa Concordia as plans are put in place to remove it from the rocks by mid-2014.


William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989. The vessel, an oil tanker, was bound for Long Beach California and struck Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef in Alaska spilling some 750,000 barrels of oil over the next few days. It is considered one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters ever. Exxon and its insurers paid $2 billion in cleaning up the spill and a further $1 billion to settle related civil and criminal charges and a further $507.5 million in punitive damages. The Valdez spill was the largest ever in US waters until the 2010 Deepwa- ter Horizon oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill


began on the 20th April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP operated Macondo Prospect. It claimed 11 lives and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a


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sea floor gusher flowed for 87 days with an estimated total discharge of some 4.9 million barrels of oil. According to the satellite im-


ages, the spill directly impacted 68,000 square miles (180,000 km2) of ocean, which is comparable to the size of Oklahoma. By early June it had washed up on 125 miles of Louisiana’s coast and along the Mis- sissippi, Florida and Alabama coast lines. A total of 16,000 miles of coastline have been affected. Over 30,000 people responded to the spill in the Gulf of Mexico working to collect oil, clean up beaches, take care of animals and perform various other duties. Over 8,000 animals (birds, turtles, mammals) were re- ported dead just 6 months after the spill. As the law courts continue to wrangle with the aftermath of this enormous disaster, the estimated total cost could run as high as $42.5 billion. This obviously does not com- pensate for the damage done to


wildlife and the Ocean. The latest disaster is of course the


Costa Concordia. A technique in- tended to reduce the environmental effect of recovering the wreck of the Costa Concordia is boosting insur- ers’ and reinsurers’ costs, making the cruise ship disaster the costliest marine loss of all time. Owned by an Italian unit of Mi-


ami-based Carnival Corp. & P.L.C., the Costa Concordia sank in January 2012 near the coast of Tuscany, Italy, causing 32 fatalities. It is a large passenger vessel at 951.5 feet and weighing 145.6 tons, and it was car- rying 4,200 passengers when it hit rocks and grounded off the Italian island of Giglio. Five people already have been


convicted for their roles in the disas- ter, and the ship’s captain is accused of manslaughter and abandoning the ship. The ship was insured in the protection and indemnity and inter- national insurance and reinsurance


April 2014


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