Photog Reflects on Images of Oil Spill Drowning

Photog Reflects on Images of Oil Spill Drowning: "

Firefighter Zheng Zhanhong (entering water) attempts to rescue colleagues Zhang Liang (top left) and Han Xiao Xiong (top right). Zhang Liang went under the oil soon after this photo was taken and drowned. Zhang and Xiao Ziong were attempting to fix an underwater pump during the oil spill clean-up operations at Dalian's Port on July 20, 2010. Photo: Lu Guang/Greenpeace

Last July, while America was coming to terms with the fallout from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, China itself was dealing with the largest oil spill in its history in the city of Dalian. During the disaster, a fatal act of bravery was caught on film by a nearby photographer.

Assigned by Greenpeace to the area, Chinese photographer Lu Guang documented the environmental destruction and the clean-up effort in Dalian. While he was photographing the city’s harbor for his assignment, a 25 year-old firefighter named Zhang Liang waded into the harbor to clear a water pump but lost his footing. Despite efforts by rescuers, Liang drowned.

With shaking hands, Lu Guang photographed Liang’s death on 47 digital files. The episode lasted less than six minutes. A second firefighter, Han Xiao Xiong lost consciousness beneath the slick but was rescued. The tragic series of photos later won third prize in the 2011 World Press Photo awards’ spot news category.

“Had I not taken these picture of Zhang Liang, his sacrifice would have perhaps gone unnoticed and people would not have been aware of the extent of the oil spill,” says Lu Guang in Through the Lens: the Dalian Oil Spill, a short video produced by Greenpeace. The film aims to bring continued attention to the environmental disaster, pay tribute to Zhang Liang and give the photographer, who also photographed Liang’s memorial service, an opportunity to describe his experience as a witness to death.

The spill started on July 17th, 2010, when two oil pipelines exploded in Dalian, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air. The pipelines burned for over 15 hours and released thousands of gallons of oil into the harbor and the Yellow Sea. Five days after the disaster the oil slick covered 165 sq. miles.

The Chinese government reported the leak at 1,500 tons. Speaking to Greenpeace, Dr. Richard Steiner, professor at The University of Alaska and a specialist in oil spills, estimated the Dalian spill at 90,000 tons. Nevertheless, less than two weeks after the spill Greenpeace assessed the response by Chinese authorities and thousands of volunteer fishermen as “timely and generally effective.” As with the BP spill in the U.S., the long-term effects remain to be seen.

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More pictures of the spill at The Big Picture.

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