Images tell the story of the decade
There has been no shortage of big news over the last decade. Spanning the globe, some stories were expected while others caught the world off guard. The Associated Press assembled a selection of the most striking stories with images.
Hurricanes
2017 was the year America’s hurricane luck ran out.
For much of the decade that began in 2010, hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or more flirted with Florida and other parts the United States, but never made landfall. In fact, not one major hurricane hit the U.S. between 2006 and 2016. Colorado State University hurricane scientist Phil Klotzbach called it “an amazing streak of luck.”
Then came 2017. Three powerful hurricanes — Harvey, Irma and Maria — slammed into different parts of the country, causing $265 billion damage in four weeks.
BP oil spill
America’s biggest offshore oil spill began with an explosion that killed 11 people. It happened April 20, 2010, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which was extracting oil for BP. The rig sank two days later on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. For 87 excruciating days, oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico as people including oil engineers, a Nobel winning scientist and actor Kevin Costner came up with plans to plug the leak that left a bathtub-like ring of coagulated oil on the seafloor.
A team of scientists calculated that 172 million gallons spilled into the Gulf. BP said the number was closer to 100 million gallons, and a federal judge ruled that 134 million gallons had spilled. The case languished in court until April 2016, when a federal judge approved a $20 billion settlement, ruling that BP had been “grossly negligent.”
By then, the surface of the Gulf of Mexico had no visible scars. Beaches and marshes looked oil-free and back to normal.
However, scientists noticed an increase in dolphin deaths, which had averaged 63 a year before the spill. After
the spill, they hit 335 in 2011 and averaged 200 a year for five years. Biologists also reported far fewer numbers of endangered Kemp Ripley sea turtles for years after.
Glacial melting
Earth’s glaciers have shrunk by about 3,860 billion tons this decade, according to research by Michael Zemp at the World Glacier Monitoring Service. That’s about 924 trillion gallons of melted ice and snow — enough to cover the United States in water 14 inches deep.
“The last decade has been devastating for Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets, and unlike anything modern humanity has seen before,” ice scientist Twila Moon of the National Snow and Ice Data Center said in an email. “Sea level rise from ice loss across the globe has increased flooding, coastal erosion, and health and safety problems, impacting people’s lives, communities, and economies.”
The Islamic State group
The Islamic State group emerged in 2014 during chaotic conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The militants seized towns and cities, quickly gaining control of one-third of both countries. IS created what no other extremist group had before: a so-called Islamic caliphate, with the Syrian city of Raqqa as its capital. Thousands of foreign fighters converged there, and the militants ruled over the local population with a mix of terror and rewards. They levied taxes and extorted the local population. They smuggled oil and collected ransoms, making IS one of the richest militant groups to ever exist.
The group also plotted and executed attacks in the West. It produced thousands of slick online propaganda videos and recruited supporters around the world.
In response to the threat, a military campaign by a U.S.-led international coalition slowly chipped away at the group’s territory. The militants made their last stand in March 2019 in a tiny Syrian village on the border with Iraq.
Even though IS has lost most of its territory, the group remains a threat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and beyond.
Fukushima disaster
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and giant tsunami struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, causing its key cooling systems to fail, resulting in the meltdown of three reactors and spreading radiation into surrounding communities and out at sea.
Concerns about radiation at one point displaced about 160,000 people, splitting many families and communities. More than 40,000 still have not been allowed back.
The plant has since been stabilized and is being decommissioned, and officials say that could take decades. Removing the estimated 800 tons of melted debris and cleaning up the complex is an unprecedented challenge, some experts say. If or when the task can be done remains in question.
The scrutiny that followed revealed poor risk management practices by the government and plant operators and shed light on the lack of safety measures, prompting the public’s distrust and contributing to widespread anti-nuclear sentiment. Japan temporarily shut down all reactors for safety checks and introduced stricter safety standards. The approvals take time, and a handful of reactors have since been restarted.
The Fukushima disaster has chilled the nuclear industry around the world. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe still promotes nuclear energy as a key component of the nation’s energy mix, but the government had to largely abandon plans for nuclear plant exports and business overseas.
China expansion
Across the sprawling and strategic South China Sea, nearly 70 disputed islands, reefs and atolls are occupied by five claimants. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have built airstrips, harbors, barracks and other infrastructure for both civilian and military use. Only China has created new islands by piling sand and concrete atop coral reefs.
That has upset the balance of power in the region, strengthening China’s claim to the entire waterway. It also has further harmed the fragile environment already threatened by overfishing, pollution and the harvesting of giant clams by Chinese fishermen.