World's worst environmental disasters

On December 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide leaked about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air, killing an estimated 15,000 people and affecting at least 500,000 more in Bhopal, India. Photo: Firemen try to prevent the spread of dangerous fumes at the Union Carbide plant

Investigation revealed that the main cause of accident occurred in Bhopal were violations of safety standards by the administration of the plant. Photo: Men carry children blinded by the Union Carbide chemical pesticide leak to a hospital in Bhopal, India, 1984

In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470m to settle litigation stemming from the disaster. Photo: Indians mourn a victim of poisonous gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal, 1984

On March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred near Alaska shore, when oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil over the next few days.

Storms and currents then smeared crude oil over 1,300 miles of shoreline. Twenty five years later, the region, its people and its wildfire are still recovering

The Valdez spill was the largest in US waters until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Photo: Oil spill clean up on a Naked Island Beach in the Prince William Sound, 1989, Alaska

Human factor was named as main cause of the accident after the investigation was finished. Company was fined $ 507.5 million

On 21 January 2000, pipeline at the Reduc refinery in Rio de Janeiro leaked 1.3 million liters of crude oil into the bay. Petrobras, the government-owned oil company was pleaded guilty and paid a fine of more than $25 million. Photo: An oil-blackened beach of the Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2000

In July 2000 an accident occurred at Petrobras' oil refinery in Brazilian state of Parana. More than 1 million gallons of crude oil was spewed by the pipe into the Iguacu river which became country's worst oil spill in 25 years

On August 17, 2009, the Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Russia’s Siberia suffered a catastrophic industrial disaster, when the engine and turbine rooms were flooded, which caused an underwater explosion

The disaster killed 75 people and injured 13. About 50 tonnes of turbine oil got spilled into the Yenisei River

The damage was estimated at over $13 million

In April 2010 an estimate 5 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf from the underwater leak, following the explosion on BP's mobile offshore drilling rig

The accident triggered the worst oil spill in US history, killing uncountable numbers of birds and sea animals and bringing down fishery in the region. Photo: Aaircraft releasing oil dispersant over oil spill from the mobile offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, USA

BP and the US Department of Justice agreed to a record-setting $4.525 billion in fines. Photo: Clean-up workers tossing trash bags full of oil spill refuse on a Gulf Shores beach, Alabama, USA

Criminal and civil settlements and payments to a trust fund had cost the company $42.2 billion. Photo: Thick crude oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill being collected