In August 1990 Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, starting the Gulf War in which an allegiance of 34 nations

worldwide was involved. In January 1991 of the Gulf War, Iraqi forces committed two environmental
disasters. The first was a major oil spill 16 kilometres off the shore of Kuwait by dumping oil from
several tankers and opening the valves of an offshore terminal. The second was the setting fire to 650
oil wells in Kuwait.
The apparent strategic goal of the action was to prevent a potential landing by US Marines. American
air strikes on January 26 destroyed pipelines to prevent further spillage into the Gulf. This however
seemed to make little difference. Approximately one million tons of crude oil was already lost to the
environment, making this the largest oil spill of human history. In the spring of 1991, as many as 500
oil wells were still burning and the last oil well was not extinguished until a few months later, in
November.
The oil spills did considerable damage to life in the Persian Gulf (see picture).
Several months after the spill, the poisoned waters killed 20.000 seabirds and
had caused severe damage to local marine flora and fauna. The fires in the oil
wells caused immense amounts of soot and toxic fumes to enter the
atmosphere. This had great effects on the health of the local population and
biota for several years. The pollution also had a possible impact on local
weather patterns.
Tricolor
In the early hours of December 14, 2002 the Norwegian ship Tricolor collided with
the Bahama container ship Kariba in the French Channel. The accident was caused
by fog and human errors. The Kariba was heavily damaged, but managed to reach
the Antwerp harbour. The crew of Tricolor was rescued by emergency teams, which
experienced low visibility that made the rescue operation very hard. Fortunately,
nobody was hurt.

Despite warning signals on the location of the Tricolor the Nicola collided with the wreck on December
16. The Nicola could be safely removed from the scene but the Tricolor was now much more severely
damaged. The ship was declared total loss and Berger Smit started to pump 2.200 tons of oil from the
wreck.
In January 2003 the oil tanker Vicky collided with the Tricolor, causing some oil from the Vicky to flow
into sea and reach French and Belgium shores. Fortunately damages were limited and the Tricolor did
not leak any oil.

By the end of January even more extreme weather caused Berger Smit to collide with the Tricolor
wreck, which started leaking oil. It became apparent that at least 1.000 tons of oil had leaked away
into the Channel. The oil reached France and Belgium, causing thousands of dead seabirds to wash
ashore.

After this third collision a confederation was ordered by the French government to remove the wreck
to prevent further environmental damage. Eventually, the ship was broken into nine small pieces,
heaved from the water and carried away.

At this moment the sea soil still contains hundreds of cars wreckages that were once transported by
the Tricolor. The freight value was approximately 49 million euros. The ship has an additional value of
40 million euros.