Countryfile Presenter Horrified by 1996 Sea Empress Oil Spill Aftermath in Wales
Countryfile presenter Hamza Yassin was visibly shaken during Sunday's episode of the BBC show after visiting a small Welsh town profoundly affected by a catastrophic maritime disaster. The wildlife cameraman, aged 35, confessed that he had 'never seen anything like it' as he surveyed the lingering consequences of the incident, which occurred thirty years ago this month.
Unfolding the Environmental Catastrophe
At the location in Pembrokeshire, Wales, Hamza detailed the events of February 15, 1996, when the oil tanker Sea Empress ran aground at the entrance to Milford Haven port. The accident resulted in a massive spill of thousands of tonnes of crude oil into the sea, impacting an astonishing 200 miles of the British coastline and leaving thousands of birds coated in oil.
Hamza remarked, 'At the entrance to the port of Milford Haven, a ship called the Sea Empress ran aground and thousands of tonnes of oil spilt into the sea.' During the programme, he was shown archival footage from the period and learned about the enormous cleanup effort required to restore South Wales beaches after they were inundated with 72,000 tonnes of oil.
He observed, 'There's just people mopping up that looks like mud, but you know it's not mud. It's crude oil that's spilt all over the place.'
Personal Reflections and Lasting Impact
Reflecting further on the oil spill, a clearly distressed Hamza admitted, 'I've never seen anything like this and I hope that I don't see anything like this ever again. What happened on that day was an absolute disaster. I feel sorry for the humans, but more importantly, I feel sorry for the wildlife.'
One particularly moving archive clip featured a bird so heavily covered in oil that it became unrecognisable, despite being a common species. Hamza noted he was unable to identify it due to the extensive contamination.
The disaster was exacerbated by the fact that it took six days to remove the Sea Empress from the rocky coastline where it had grounded. By that time, shocking footage of the devastating effects had captured global headlines.
Community Shock and Preventable Errors
Conservationist and television presenter Iolo Williams told the BBC, '[The oil] got into [the pores of] your skin, it got into your hair... and everybody went around with these bright red eyes.'
Subsequent investigations concluded that the grounding was a preventable human error, attributed to a malfunctioning radar at Milford Haven. Gordon James, then director of Friends of the Earth in Wales, stated that the oil spill, which was large enough to fill 32 Olympic swimming pools, came as a tremendous 'shock to the local community.'
Gordon recalled, 'I remember going down to Tenby and seeing the beautiful North Beach covered in black and there were people there in tears. We set up a legal team and we interviewed a lot of people... and the evidence was damning. The tugboat men and the marine pilots, they'd issued warnings that safety was being compromised [at the port], there were cutbacks and they were saying more or less it's a disaster waiting to happen.'
Legal Repercussions and Safety Improvements
Milford Haven Port Authority was initially fined £4 million for the disaster, but after an appeal, the penalty was reduced to £750,000 in compensation for the damage caused. This lower amount allowed the port to implement necessary changes to prevent a similar catastrophe from occurring in the future.
Countryfile airs Sundays at 6pm on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer.
