The above is a particularly touching acknowledgement by Kuwait: A Desert On Fire author Sebastiáo Salgado, and successfully sets the scene for a captivating book that's brimming with torment and emotion.
The assortment of black and white photographs were taken in 1991 by the Brazilian photographer, after Saddam Hussein’s forces set alight multiple oil wells in Kuwait.
In January and February 1991, over 700 wells were ignited by Iraqi forces as they were driven out of region. The resulting vast and insatiable fires caused one of the worst environmental disasters in living memory. A scorched earth policy was implemented after a dispute between the two countries over alleged slant-drilling in the region.
Sebastião Salgado travelled to Kuwait to witness the destruction firsthand, and by doing so, documented the desperate efforts to contain and, later, extinguish the smouldering infernos and unpredictable explosions of dense oil. “It felt as if the end were nigh,” he writes, sincerely. “With the sun obliterated by dark smoke, a Dantean landscape stretched as far as the eye could see.”
The heat was so vicious that Salgado’s smallest lens warped, rendering it useless. “Thick pillars of crude oil spewed into the sky before falling back to the earth to form treacly black lakes that, without warning, could become gigantic infernos.”
