The U.N. said Friday it has completed the transfer of more than 1 million barrels of oil from a decaying supertanker off Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Achim Steiner: “This is a major disaster averted. It was a ticking time bomb, as many called it, and it could have destroyed hundreds of thousands of livelihoods. It could have affected the shipping up the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal. It could have destroyed biodiversity and fisheries for a quarter of a century.”