Sea Empress oil spill at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales UK on 15 February 1996 and became grounded after hitting rocks. Pictured here with aircraft spraying chemicals for clean up operation and dispersing the oil spill. Following the spill, the Sea Empress was repaired and renamed five times. In 2004, she was sold and moved to Chittagong as a floating production, storage and offloading unit. In 2009, she was acquired by Oriental Ocean Shipping Holding PTE Ltd, renamed MV Welwind and converted to bulk carrier. In 2012, she was renamed as WIND 3.
The Sea Empress oil spill occurred at the entrance to the Milford Haven Waterway in Pembrokeshire, Wales on 15 February 1996. The Sea Empress was en route to the Texaco oil refinery near Pembroke when she became grounded on mid-channel rocks at St. Ann's Head. Over the course of a week, she spilt 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea. The spill occurred within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park – one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas. It was Britain's third largest oil spillage and the twelfth largest in the world at the time. Sailing against the outgoing tide and in calm conditions, at 20:07 GMT the ship was pushed off course by the current and became grounded after hitting rocks in the middle of the channel. The collision punctured her starboard hull causing oil to pour out into the sea. Tugs from Milford Haven Port Authority were sent to the scene and attempted to pull the vessel free and re-float her. During the initial rescue attempts, she detached several times from the tugs and grounded repeatedly – each time slicing open new sections of her hull and releasing more oil. A full scale emergency plan was activated by the authorities. Over the next few days, efforts to pull the vessel from the rocks continued. The tanker ran aground very close to the islands of Skomer and Skokholm – both national nature reserves, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Protection Areas and home to Manx shearwaters, Atlantic puffins, guillemots, razorbills, great cormorants, kittiwakes, European storm-petrels, common shags and Eurasian oystercatchers. Birds at sea were hit hard during the early weeks of the spill, resulting in thousands of deaths. The effects of the spill were not as bad as initially predicted. Much of the Pembrokeshire coastline recovered relatively quickly. By 2001, the affected marine wildlife population levels had more-or-less returned to normal.
Size: 2100px × 1500px
Location: Dale Peninsula Wales UK
Photo credit: © Daniel Valla FRPS / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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