Torrey Canyon oil spill: The day the sea turned black
Fifty years ago, the supertanker SS Torrey Canyon hit rocks off the coast of Cornwall, spilling more than 100,000 tonnes of crude oil into the English Channel. Beaches were left knee-deep in sludge and thousands of sea birds were killed in what remains the UK's worst environmental accident. Read more
The Torrey Canyon was a supertanker capable of carrying a cargo of 120,000 tons of crude oil, which was shipwrecked off the western coast of Cornwall, England in March 1967 causing an environmental disaster. On 18 March 1967, owing to a navigational error, the Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Scilly Isles. Read more