Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform is an accident that occurred on April 20, 2010, 80 kilometers from the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in the Macondo field.

The oil spill that followed the accident became the largest in the history of the United States and turned the accident into one of the largest man-made disasters in terms of negative impact on the environment.

At the time of the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon installation, 11 people were killed and 17 of the 126 people on board were injured. At the end of June 2010, there were reports of the death of 2 more people during the aftermath of the disaster.

Through damage to well pipes at a depth of 1500 meters, about 5 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in 152 days, the oil slick reached an area of 75 thousand square kilometers, which is about 5% of the area of the Gulf of Mexico.