Specials » The Prestige : We don't forget
The Prestige : We don't forget
The Prestige : We don't forget
Executive Summary 'The Prestige Disaster'
15.15 p.m. on 13th November 2002, the 26-year-old, single hulled oil tanker Prestige, flying the Bahamian flag and loaded with 77,000 tonnes of residual heavy fuel oil, sent out an SOS at a distance of 28 miles (50 kilometres) from Finisterre, Galicia, Spain. At five o´clock that afternoon, the first litres of crude oil began to pollute the Atlantic Ocean.
Two years later, the remains of the slick, the sadly famous 'chapapote', 'pichi' or 'galipote', depending on the stretch of coast where it comes to shore, continues to appear like a never-ending tide on the Atlantic coast
Studies such as "El Impacto del Prestige", carried out by scientists from Galician universities, reveal a particular concern about the current situation. The authors, who also studied the repercussions of the sinking of the Mar Egeo ship off the coast of A Coruña in 1992, estimate that the damage caused by the Prestige is even greater.
The enormous loss of bird life, between 250,000 and 300,000 specimens according to estimates by the Spanish Ornithology Society (SEO/BirdLife), indicates that we are talking of the greatest catastrophe of this type ever suffered in Europe and the second most serious in the world after the wildlife deaths caused by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989. The research done by these experts indicates that, from an economic point of view, the Prestige disaster actually exceeds that of the Exxon Valdez since the cost of the cleaning and recovery work could total 2,500 million euros, compared to the 1,800 million spent in Alaska.
According to the predictions of expert scientists in this area, the socio-economic an environmental repercussions of the oil slick will continue to be felt for at least a decade along the 2,000 kilometres of coast that have been affected. The entire Cantabrian and Galician Atlantic coasts have seen their shores seriously damaged by the arrival of countless waves of crude oil. The spill has blackened beaches and cliffs, eliminated some of the marine life, either directly (due to mortalities) or indirectly (many free-moving organisms fled when faced with the presence of the hydrocarbon). It has also jeopardised the quality of the waters, which will take many years to recover the characteristics necessary for marine life to develop as it was before the environmental disaster.
Despite this serious situation, the Spanish government has still not presented a comprehensive recovery plan which would serve to speed up the environmental, economic and social recovery of the affected coastline. Furthermore, there has been nochange in the international global regulatory regime which could prevent similar accidents in the future.The Prestige disaster must serve as a salutary lesson and lead to a change
in direction. This is how it must be understood by those that manage economic and environmental resources. The Cantabrian and Galician coasts have been a source of wealth for hundreds of years