Developing Story: Gulf Oil Spill

• Reports show that if the leak continues at this rate for four more days, it will exceed the amount of oil spilled by tanker Exxon Valdez when it ran aground in Alaska on March 24, 1989, the worst oil spill incident in U.S. history. Complicated measures are taken to stop the leak but there is no definite solution as yet.
  More than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning, April 21.
  
  
  

  Gerald Herbert, AP

• A turtle swims through a massive oil slick about 15 miles south of Louisiana on May 4, spotted by officials from the National Wildlife Foundation.
  The group hired a boat from the port town of Venice and went out into the Gulf of Mexico through an outlet in the Mississippi River. Nobody on board was trained in animal rescue and they were forced to leave the obviously distressed turtle in the slick and simply report the coordinates to a hotline. Two weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the full impact of the disaster is being realized as a massive slick looms off the US Gulf coast, threatening to wipe out the livelihoods of shoreline communities. If estimates are correct, some 2.5 million gallons of crude have streamed into the sea since the BP-leased platform spectacularly sank on April 22, still ablaze more than two days after the initial blast that killed 11 workers.
  
  
  

  OilSpill, NWF.org, AFP / Getty Images

• A Portuguese Man-o-War is seen in clumps of oil in the waters in Chandeleur Sound, La., May 3, 2010. Fish and wildlife are vulnerable to the oil spill.
  
  
  

  Alex Brandon, AP

• More than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning, April 22.
  
  
  

  Gerald Herbert, File / AP

• An oil slick is seen as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns, April 21.
  
  
  

  Gerald Herbert, AP

• This satellite photo made on April 29 shows the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
  
  
  

  NASA, AP

• Two brown pelicans and a flock of seagulls rest on the shore of Ship Island, Mississippi, as a boom line floats just offshore, April 29. Several hundred yards of boom line has been set up on the north side of the island to try and contain the oncoming oil spill. Crews are placing the boom in different areas on Coast waterways to help protect against an approaching oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
  
  
  

  William Colgin, Biloxi Sun Herald / MCT

• Workers from the Sea Turtle Rescue operation of the South Carolina Aquarium release back to the ocean seven rehabilitated sea turtles May 1, on the Isle of Palms, South Carolina. Sea turtles are endangered throughout the southeast and hundreds are expected to be injured in the massive oil spill.
  
  
  

  Richard Ellis, Getty Images

• A boat with an oil boom tries to contain the oil, approximately seven miles from where the rig sunk, April 23.
  
  
  

  Gerald Herbert, AP

• Eddie Soto working with Resolve Marine Group carries oil containment booms to the edge of Lake Pontchartrain on May 2, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
  
  
  

  Chris Graythen, Getty Images