16 March 2010

This day in history:
On 16 March 1978, the oil tanker the Amoco Cadiz, transporting 227,000 tonnes of crude oil, suffered a failure of her steering mechanism, and despite the efforts of the crew of a German tug boat and two unsuccessful towing attempts, ran aground on Portsall Rocks, on the Breton coast. The entire cargo spilled out as the breakers split the vessel in two, progressively polluting 360 km of shoreline from Brest to Saint Brieuc.This was the largest oil spill caused by a tanker grounding ever registered in the world. The consequences of this accident were significant, and it caused the French Government to revise its oil response plan (the Polmar Plan), to acquire equipment stocks (Polmar stocks), to impose traffic lanes in the Channel and to create Cedre. read more