Braer Oil Disaster, Shetland 1993

£8.00

Braer Oil Disaster, 1993

A5 size

40 Pages

32 Black and white photographs

In early January 1993 I received a call from a newspaper picture editor asking me to go to the Shetland Isles to be part of a team reporting on the wrecking of the MV Braer, a tanker carrying 85,000 tonnes of crude oil, which was being driven ashore in wild storms. An environmental disaster was unfolding.

I flew north with the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Lang, in a small plane, with views down to the Braer being buffeted by the storm’s waves as we arrived.
The tanker ship lay off Garths Ness, relentlessly pounded by the severe weather. Reaching the wreck was a walk along a farm track, up onto the cliffs, where you could photograph briefly, before having to wipe the oily spray from your camera lens.

By the end of my days there the ship had broken, and the bow stood out of the water. I believe nothing is now visible above water. But these images tell the story of that wild week in 1993. - Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.

With a foreword by Jonathan Wills, author of Innocent Passage: The Wreck of the Tanker Braer.

*** Available as a DISCOUNTED SET OF TWO zines, paired with Klondykers, Shetland 1994 ***