Amoco Cadiz: Archives

First days' response
How can we deal with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of oil and water emulsion washing up on the shore?

Organising the response
After the panic of the first few days, the response action became more organised.

A year later: first results
By autumn 1978 almost no visible trace of the pollution remained.

Scientists and economists at work
Accurate ecological, economical and sociological information was needed because of questioning about the future and for accurate quantification of damages for the trial.

Medium term impact
In the following years, scientists works established that 260,000 tonnes of marine animals were killed in the first month either buried under oil or victims of its toxicity. They also showed that in 1978-1979 opportunist species, resistant to hydrocarbon settled in the most affected areas.

Fourteen years of proceedings
The Amoco Transport company, shipowner of the Amoco Cadiz, only had a small insurance policy to cover the damage caused by an accidental pollution.

Never again!
While experts assessed the damages and lawyers went to the United States for the trial, the French Government took significant measures in order to reduce the risks of another accident and to obtain better response equipment.

Books by children from Portsall Schools
For the 20th anniversary of the oil spill, children from Portsall schools wrote two novels with their teachers and an author of children's books.

Twenty, then thirty, years later
1998 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Amoco Cadiz disaster..