BP oil spill: Disaster by numbers
The scale of the BP oil spill can be hard to take in. Now, five months on, these shocking figures reveal the extent of the devastation. 
Compiled by Alice-Azania Jarvis
14 September 2010 11 platform workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on 20 April. Their bodies have never been found, despite a three-day Coast Guard search operation. Seventeen others were injured. 36 The number of hours for which Deepwater Horizon burned before it sank on the morning of 22 April 2010. 4.9 million The total barrels of crude oil released before the leak was capped on 15 July. This makes Deepwater Horizon the biggest oil spill to have occurred in US-controlled waters, exceeding the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989, which released 750,000 barrels. 4 million The number of barrels of crude oil it would take, according Harry Roberts of Louisiana State University, to “wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf” as well as “along hundreds of miles of coastline”. 1,000 BP’s initial prediction of the leak in barrels per day. The real figure was 53,000. 5,000 The depth below sea-level, in feet, at which Deepwater Horizon was drilling at the time of the explosion. It could operate in waters of up to 8,000ft in depth and drill as far down 30,000ft. 3,850 The square-mile spread of the leaked oil, which had landed along 125 miles of Louisiana’s coast by 4 June 2010. Three weeks later, oil began to wash up on Pensacola Beach in Florida and at the nearby Gulf Islands National Seashore nature reserve. 50-60 The percentage of the oil spill thought to have remained on the water. 35 per cent was thought able to evaporate. 3 The percentage of that oil that it was possible to skim off. The remainder had to be removed through the use of other methods, such as burning, chemical dispersion and direct extraction. … 4,768 The number of dead animals collected as of 13 August: 4,080 of these were birds and 525 sea turtles. 8,332-plus The number of species living within the vicinity of the oil spill. This includes the endangered Kemp’s Ridley turtle, as well as more than 1,200 fish, 200 birds, 1,400 molluscs, 1,500 crustaceans, and 29 marine mammals and three other sea turtle specimens. …
