Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico  

Here's a picture of Deepwater Horizon on fire and listing badly shortly before she went down 1500m to the ocean floor:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9gn6KLa5xtY/S-l5ucz3JzI/AAAAAAAAGPI/b6umOTKn5OE/s1600/GulfOfMexicoDisasterTheRigAboutToCollapseOnFire.jpg

"One of the largest deep-water off-shore drilling rigs... in September 2009, it drilled the deepest oil well in history at a vertical depth of 10,683.2 m" (wiki)

Some people have speculated that the size of the spill could be up to 70,000 barrels a day. That is an Exxon Valdez disaster every four days.

BP is spending $6m a day to try and plug the leak, no success in sight.

The scale of the disaster raises questions about the viability of these giant deep depth operations.