Taken in the Ahmadi Oil Fields of Kuwait in 1991, this powerful image by Steve McCurry reflects a haunting moment of destruction, far beyond the battlefield. In the wake of the war, McCurry documented the aftermath with an image of a soldier’s oil-coated body, surrounded by the barren remnants of war: a burnt Soviet-built tank and the lingering signs of the environmental disaster caused by the conflict.

The scene is nothing short of apocalyptic, described as “Armageddon” in the accounts of those who witnessed it. The midday sun was blotted out by the smoke from burning oil fields, with oil rain falling indiscriminately on both the living and the dead. The foul air, thick with the smell of burnt oil, left no one untouched, and the land itself seemed to mourn the loss. The dead soldier, whose clothes were burned off and whose body was left exposed, became a symbol of the futility and horror of war. There was no time to bury the dead; the battlefield was left littered with the remnants of both human and machine.

While the euphoria of victory might have drowned out the reality of the human cost, over 100,000 lives were lost in the conflict. The destruction was not only physical but also environmental. Water pipelines were bombed, treatment plants destroyed, and contaminated water supplies threatened further lives, especially in Iraq. The lasting impact of this devastation, both human and ecological, lingers to this day.

McCurry’s photograph, featured in National Geographic’s August 1991 issue, conveys the senselessness of the violence and the environmental catastrophe that followed. In capturing this soldier’s fate amid the burning oil fields, McCurry gave the world a visual record of the aftermath of war that remains difficult to forget.

Photograph: Copyright Steve McCurry / Magnum Photos. Originally published in National Geographic, Vol. 180, No. 2, August 1991.