Oil Tankers Accidents

The accidents involving oil tankers are one of the most devastating environmental damage at sea and the coast. The intense traffic of crude oil and their derivatives despite the vastness of the oceans and sea lanes well defined, not prevent disasters where the term "accident" has more than azares human causes of chance.

Every month, somewhere in the seas of our blue planet, there are accidents involving oil spills and extensive training affecting ecosystems shops, banks fishing, beaches and aquaculture. With greater or lesser gravity the scenarios of oil spills cause, in most cases significant effects on birds, fish and marine animals. Especially because about 90 percent of oil spills occur in port waters, where aquatic life is very abundant.

The physical contact with the oil causes the loss of birds and many drown or become trapped to death. In addition, the ingestion or inhalation of fumes of oil cause irreversible damage in the digestive system, nervous and respiratory and liver of much of the aquatic fauna, and it can be even register in individuals who survive, reproductive problems. Finally, no less important, are the negative impacts on food resources, both for its destruction, and of its contamination. Populations of sea birds have suffered, so the pollution of oil tankers that certain species or subspecies are at risk of extinction such as parrots from the sea, the penguins and divers on both coasts of the Atlantic.

In the midst of this evil world, Portugal is a country whose coast is the scene of frequent accidents involving tankers. Since the mid 70s there were in our back 22 major accidents of oil pollution damage.