Some 60 million barrels of oil gushed out of the broken wellheads onto the land, creating 246 lakes that would eventually cover nearly 50 square kilometers of desert. According to Green Cross, today nearly 95 percent of the oil has been recovered and much of it sold. But the remaining five percent, though seemingly a negligible amount, is wreaking havoc upon Kuwait's arid ecosystems. As it percolates downward, the oil contaminates the nation's freshwater aquifers. Already some 40 percent of Kuwait's freshwater supply are no longer drinkable.
Experts estimate Kuwait's strategic reserves at two days.
Worst of all, there is at present no technological fix for this problem. The situation was somewhat less grave at sea, but not pretty by any means. Ten million barrels were dumped - six times as many as the largest commercial spill on record. It soiled 1,500 miles of coast, some of it home to spectacular corals and rare marine creatures, such as dugongs. A decade later, Green Cross reports that the sea is on the mend, with catches of shrimp and other fish approaching pre-war levels and only small traces of soiling in coral reef and intertidal communities.