The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
This film is part of Free
Oil Pollution from the Torrey Canyon
Wildlife and humans are caught up in consequences of lasting oil spill disaster.
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Overview
The lasting effects of the oil spill from the Supertanker SS Torrey Canyon has a long-term environmental impact on the coastlines of Britain, France, Guernsey and Spain, leaving an international, legal and environmental legacy. Not so happy beachgoers attempt to rub oil off their feet and clothes on a now quite common sight on shorelines. Birds, wildlife and ecosystems are still slowly recovering from the effects of the pollution today.
The Torrey Canyon left Kuwait National Petroleum Company's Mina Al-Ahmadi Refinery on 19 February 1967 for Milford Haven in Wales and struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones Reef between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly on 18 March 1967. Thirty-six to forty million gallons of crude oil spilt into the sea. Attempts to salvage the vessel and its cargo were quickly thwarted. High-level decisions to drop bombs and aviation fuel on the slicks were in hindsight wrong as the dispersants caused more harm than good. Effects of the disaster had long-term environmental consequences for the area. The oil covering Sennen Beach in Cornwall for example, was ploughed into the sand with traces still being found years later.
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