ON THIS DAY WITH SHAUN WALLACE

March 24, 1989

THE tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of oil in 1989.

Within days, the slick had spread 1,300 miles along the coast of pristine wilderness. It was one of the worst environmental disasters in US history at the time.

Yet shockingly, in the first days there was no oil recovery or clean-up equipment in the water until eventually a massive operation involving thousands of people was instigated. The Coast Guard declared it complete in 1992.

However, the oil is estimated to have killed 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbour seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales and billions of salmon and herring eggs. It decimated local fisheries.

In 1991, the company paid a criminal fine and restitution totalling about £60million, and over £400million in a civil settlement. The company said it spent £2billion in total.

Despite the clean-up, oil still lingers along the coast and populations of killer whales and some seabirds have still not recovered.

Within a year Congress passed a law requiring oil tankers in its waters to have double hulls unlike Exxon Valdez, with increased penalties for spills.

Yet since 1970, the Exxon Valdez was just the 36th worst tanker oil spill recorded, the biggest being the Atlantic Empress, which lost 90 million gallons of crude in a collision with another tanker off the coast of Tobago in the West Indies in 1979.

The worst accidental oil spill was the Deepwater Horizon blow-out. An estimated 210 million gallons were released into the Gulf of Mexico over 16 weeks in 2010. BP paid about £43billion in compensation.

The biggest spill in modern history occurred when Saddam Hussein ordered the release of 380-520 million gallons into the Persian Gulf as his forces retreated from Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991.

Question: Steve Mcqueen, who was born on this day in 1930, played which character in the 1963 film The Great Escape?

Last week I asked: Which American singer, jazz pianist and actor who wrote more than 100 hits was born on this day in 1919? The answer is NAT KING COLE.