Abstract The 2019 oil spill was the biggest in Brazilian history. Oil was found along more than 3,000 km of the Brazilian coastline, mainly in the Northeast, in more than 1,000 localities. This article analyzes the disaster’s damage using a sample of interviewers who were impacted - fishers, tourism and beach hawkers - distributed along 40 of the affected municipalities in the Northeast Region of Brazil. The socio-economic indicators obtained by the research show that the impacts were not homogeneous between the segments and cities researched. Localities specialized in tourism and with a workforce relatively more specialized in fishing were the most affected. Accordingly, the populations of fishers and beach hawkers suffered the most severe impacts in terms of income reduction and the sale of products. These agents report a negative impact of the disaster on their work activities of 73% (fishers) and 65% (beach vendors), while the lodging and food sectors reported losses in about 38% of the cases. The interviewees’ health indicators demonstrated that the volunteers at the oil spill clean- up suffered damage due to the exposure experienced, evidencing the public health emergency dimension of the disaster.