All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S06E06.The.Worlds.Strangest.Disaster.Zones.Pt.2.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates):
There are disaster zones

all around our planet.

The first thing you see
is devastation, wreckage,

ruined buildings,
torn up highways.

Man: It's actually
very unnerving,

it's almost like there's some
other worldly movement

going on underneath there, it
doesn't in any way feel normal.

Some were struck
by unexpected forces.

Others were the victims
of human ambition.

I mean, what's actually
happening is, is quite frightening

and it's, it's unprecedented
in terms of anywhere else

on the earth's surface.

It looks like a post
apocalyptic landscape,

you have to wonder
was it bombed?

Did anyone survive?

What happened here?

Destroyed by mother nature,

fatal miscalculations
or bizarre phenomena,

these are five of the world's
strangest disaster zones.

There was an entire
town there that's now gone.

Crumbling remains.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Shaped by extraordinary events,

violent forces and
human ambitions.

Their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

What's happening
here is terrifying.

The destructive forces
unleashed could be catastrophic.

At number five in the world's
strangest disaster zones.

On Japan's east coast
there is a confusing picture

of deserted buildings
and security cordons.

It's apparent that
once upon a time

this was a bustling thriving
landscape full of homes,

buildings, factories but now
it's just torn apart, destroyed.

There's no question
that this entire landscape

was subjected to an
overwhelming force.

The whole area looks
like some kind of a,

a giant child just
tossed it helter skelter.

But just a few miles away

an altogether different
scene emerges.

There's something not
quite right about this town,

it feels like a zombie
movie or like a ghost town.

It's on lockdown, you
can't get anywhere near it,

the security fences, you
are not allowed in this zone,

it's a no go area.

What's happened in
this area is so confusing

because on the one hand
there's absolute devastation

and destruction and
on the other hand

things seem perfectly normal
and fine yet no-one is there.

The big question for me is
how are those two things linked?

In the town of tomioka
the local high school

now sits vacant and locked up.

Little seems to have changed

since it was last
filled with students.

Toshiko (translation): "This
is the main school building,

"there were three
classes per grade

"in total nine classes
were studying here.

"Students would play soccer
and then baseball around the back.

"They were training hard."

Toshiko aoki is a former
principal of this school.

Having left a few years
before disaster struck

she still recalls the
promise of its students.

Translation: "Golf, badminton,
soccer these were the three sports

"the school was focusing on
with the aim of producing athletes

"that would be
successful internationally.

"The school programme was
therefore designed around this goal."

But in 2011, those
ambitious plans for the future

were suddenly put on hold

and the buildings have
remained empty ever since.

Hanging on the wall
is a stark reminder

of the exact moment
tragedy struck.

Translation: "Look, this
clock on the school building

"it stopped at 2:46.

"The time on the
clock hasn't changed

"since march 11, 2011."

On that day at 2:46pm

a magnitude nine earthquake
struck the east coast of Japan.

This was one of the most
intense earthquakes ever recorded.

It lasted for three minutes,

usually earthquakes
just last for a few seconds.

The earthquake was so powerful

that it supposedly moved the entire
country of Japan east by eight feet,

I can't even fathom that.

But while the earthquake
caused an evacuation

it was another reason why
no-one was allowed back.

Well, here's what's amazing
about the earthquake itself

is that it didn't do as much
as damage as you'd expect.

Japan leads the world in
earthquake preparedness

and they really plan
and build accordingly

so when this earthquake hit

it didn't knock down
lots of buildings

the way it might have in
other parts of the world.

The earthquake though
was just the beginning,

this area was to be
hit by not just one

but two more deadly events.

The epicentre of the earthquake
was 80 miles to the east

in the pacific ocean
and that set a second

devastating event in motion.

When an earthquake happens
and its epicentre is at sea

the land shifts, yeah, and of course
it causes the water above to move

and where is that going to go?

The low lying lands near the
coast were now in the firing line.

A Tsunami that at its fastest

was travelling at
500 miles per hour.

It first made landfall at around
15 minutes after the earthquake.

Even though they
have very high sea walls

along this coast these
waves were high enough

to crest those walls and
flood the coastal plain.

A lot of us imagined a
big towering breaking wave

but it's really not like
that, it's not a single wave,

it's more like a flood of
water that flows inland

and just submerges everything.

When you see the
pictures of the water

tearing through that landscape,

tearing through people's
homes and lives it doesn't matter

whether you live 100 miles away

or you're on the
other side of the globe

on a very human scale
you can actually imagine

how terrifying that would be.

In the end the Tsunami
reached as far as six miles inland,

effecting around 200
square miles of the east coast.

The Tsunami was devastating,
it wiped out the coastal towns,

it tore up the infrastructure
and some 19,000 people

were killed or missing.

I trained as a civil engineer

and I'm really aware
of how you know,

we build our buildings
and our structures

to withstand failure
but in the face of er,

natural event like that
how can we possibly design

to take that in to account

it's phenomenal the amount
of power that nature has.

Nearby new efforts to shore up
the coastal defences are evident

but while these areas
are slowly being reclaimed

other sites remain off limits.

So, you've got some
areas that it's clear

there was devastation
and destruction

but there are other areas
that are just abandoned

that look completely normal.

There's just no-one
there and the only people

you can see are security guards.

The fact that there's
still security here

and guards patrolling the area

means there's still
some kind of threat.

So why is this area off
limits all these years later?

On 11 march 2011,

a massive earthquake
had triggered a Tsunami.

Sitting directly in
the Tsunami's path

was the fukushima
daiichi nuclear power plant.

This region got hit really
with a triple disaster,

first the earthquake,
then the Tsunami

but third the
Tsunami knocked out

the local nuclear power plant.

News archive: The nuclear
plant momentarily vanished

behind a cloud of
white smoke Saturday,

it's not clear how much
radiation is leaking from the plant.

The ensuing meltdown
caused explosions

in reactor unit buildings
one, two and three

allowing dangerous
levels of radiation

to leak in to the atmosphere.

And when those nuclear
reactors melted down

that created a
release of radioactivity

that had an enormous
impact on the region.

The government declared
a nuclear emergency

and the evacuation
order was announced.

Initially only those around
a mile away from the plant

were affected but soon
tomioka and it's high school

would be swallowed up by the
rapidly expanding restricted area.

Toshiko (translation): "For people
that time the earthquake was strong

"but the Tsunami only really
affected the area by the sea.

"So, the next morning on march
12th everyone was going to go home

"and tidy up but then
there was an instruction

"to leave the city immediately,

"there was absolutely
no time to prepare,

"people just had to get
in their cars and leave."

By the end of that second
day the evacuation zone

had stretched to a radius of
around 12.5 miles from the plant

but as fears of the
radiation spread increased

other areas up to 34 miles
away were also evacuated.

In total nearly 200,000 people
were removed from their homes.

Translation: "In
reality, from the moment

"we left the city on march
12 until the 31st march

"six years later, the
residents of tomioka

"weren't allowed back home."

North of tomioka cutting through

what remains of the off
limits zone today is route 6.

Route 6 has to be
the weirdest road trip

you could ever undertake,

you're not allowed to go
too many times in one day

and you're not allowed to stop

anywhere along that
particular part of the route.

The radiation levels
are just too high

so you're told to
keep your windows up

and just keep on going.

Toshiko (translation):
"There are houses inside

"but, of course,
nobody lives there.

"There are stores around here

"but they've been left
completely untouched.

"The same as they were
eight or nine years ago."

The nuclear cleanup operation

has been the most
expensive in history.

And gradually more and more
areas including tomioka have reopened

but the consequences of this
tragedy are still plain to see.

Contaminated top soil
has had to be removed

in order to stop the spread and
you can see across the region

large mounds full of this
soil, they're trying to contain it.

Mankind doesn't stand
still after a disaster

and although it's difficult
and expensive to clean up,

that's what's happening and
gradually more and more areas

are opening back up
with a clean bill of health.

Translation: "The reason
there are so many trucks

"is because they are
carrying decontaminated things

"and building
materials, either way

"it's mainly work
vehicles in this area.

"If the radiation level goes down
the evacuation order in this area

"will gradually be cancelled
but at the moment this area

"is still a no go zone."

The Tsunami claimed
thousands of lives but the fallout

from the power plant has left
behind a controversial legacy.

Translation: "The
greatest damage

"from the nuclear accident
is not the spread of radiation

"or the increase
in level of radiation

"but the people's lives that
have been drastically altered.

"I think that what
is really polluted

"is not the air

"but the soul of the people."

The results of this
accidents are so paradoxical

we think of it as a
devastating nuclear release

but the total
amounts of radiation

were not large enough according
to the world health organisation

and others who have studied
it to cause mass fatalities

or potentially any fatalities.

But here's the big irony,

in a follow up study they found
out that more than 1600 people

who were evacuated died

partly from the stress
of the evacuation.

Many of those
people were elderly

or suffering from
medical conditions.

And toshiko is now helping
similar people as an advisor

for the local support centre.

Translation: "Since
the evacuation order

"was partially cancelled I moved
my residency documentation back.

"I'm living in tomioka
city now and doing this job

"so for the people of tomioka

"and for me the disaster
changed our lives."

In Columbia county,
Pennsylvania,

a whole town appears to
have been wiped off the map.

In a way it's a ghost
town without the town.

Roads neatly laid out in a grid

suggests this was once
a typical American town.

Author David dekok
remembers this time well.

This shot was taken
in October of 1983

looking up toward the top of
town and you can see there was a,

an entire town there
that's now gone.

A freeway with no cars.

Foundations yet no houses.

A police station
but no police force.

It's the victim of something

that most of us couldn't
believe could happen.

Until the 1970s,

centralia was an
ordinary American town.

But then people started
reporting strange incidents.

Busying fumes, steaming
cracks in the ground

and a local boy narrowly
surviving a fall in to a sinkhole.

You would see steam coming
out of this gigantic highway crack.

People wondered
what was causing this,

they may have thought

it was some kind of
volcano down there maybe.

In fact, the ground beneath
their feet was on fire.

And it's still burning today.

So, this is a borehole
and if we unscrew this cap,

we're going to see what
the fire is like underneath.

Oh, nice and hot.

I can smell the distinctive

kind of sulphur-ish
smell of the fire.

Centralia sits on a vast
network of abandoned coalmines,

it's thought a landfill
fire found its way

in to this
subterranean labyrinth

and began spreading
beneath people's homes.

There were citizen
groups in centralia saying

hey you've got to
get us out of here,

but they still took
almost two years to,

to come up with a solution.

In 1984,

the population of
centralia was relocated

and the houses demolished.

Today there is little evidence
the community of centralia

ever existed but
one question remains.

So, how long could it burn?

I've heard figures like
200 years, 250 years

but in the end nobody really
knows, it'll go until it stops burns,

runs out of fuel,
runs out of air,

neither of those are likely
to happen any time soon.

On the Indonesian
island of java,

a perplexing disaster
reduced an entire community

to a few forsaken structures.

There's homes,
there's factories,

there's religious shrines
but there's nobody around.

It really looks a very
strange environment.

There are roads but they
stop at this strange bank

that just seems to
cut everything off.

It's got warning signs,

it's not clear what's
on the other side

but clearly something
did happen here

that has profoundly
affected this whole area.

Beyond this barrier
further questions are raised.

You can peak over the top
you see the strangest thing,

a vast lake of mud and
some parts are still wet

and running and bubbling,

other parts have dried
and cracked in the sun.

The surface area of the
mud is absolutely vast,

this goes on as far
as the eye can see,

it's mind bendingly large
and the very unnerving thing

that creeps up on
as you're looking at it

is a sense of
questioning is this still live,

is this finished or is there
yet still more to come?

Closer and closer inspection
of this muddy surface

you can actually see things
on it and see structures.

It's clear that there was
something there before

and the mud has now
completely draped over everything.

So, how did this happen?

Was this a natural disaster?

Did this happen in
a man made way?

Turns out in this
case it could be both.

But with the site submerged in mud,
experts would struggle to prove it.

In 2006, porong was
a flourishing rural area.

Muawanah once lived here.

Muawanah (translation):
"This used to be my village...

"Jatirejo village,

"it used to be a
prosperous village

"but now all you can
see is the mud flow.

"We used to live
together as a family

"but now our relatives
are scattered everywhere."

This is the lumpur
sidoarjo mud flow

also known as lusi.

This was a buzzing
thriving agricultural area,

around 60,000 people,
there were fields,

there was work to be
done, it was a fertile area.

The deluge started without
warning on the 29th of may 2006.

Today, the Lucy mudflow
coats nearly six square miles of...

And it's still growing.

Translation: "People
were running for their lives,

"they were shouting
mudflow mudflow mudflow

"and then all of a
sudden it got even bigger."

The mudflow buried 16 villages,

24 factories and
hundreds of paddy fields

and commercial fishponds.

Translation: "Here, down
here was where the houses,

"the cemetery, the school
and the mosque used to be,

"now everything is
buried by the mud."

Muawanah and thousands
more porong residents

have been evacuated ever since.

The impact of all of this
mud was utter carnage,

some 60,000 people
were displaced,

their homes just gone,
the area unliveable.

A gas pipeline was severed
resulting in an explosion

that killed 13 people.

What had been a very
functional agricultural area

was now a complete warzone.

Translation: "I still
remember that day,

"I was running with my children
and now I just don't know.

"I'm worried about
my children's future.

"Will I be able to
put food on the table?

"Will I ever get a
decent job now?

"That's what I
keep thinking about.

"I don't know I'm just
fighting for the children."

Something caused an explosion
of mud out of the ground,

it was jetting up more than
10 metres high in to the sky

and it's measured
to have been erupting

180,000 cubic metres of
muddy material every day.

At first the cause of this deadly
phenomenon was a mystery.

Economically it's been
incredibly destructive,

it's estimated that it's
cost about $3 billion

in terms of lost infrastructure
and all the efforts to contain

this mud lake have failed.

Muawanah lived in the town
until she and all the other residents

were forced to evacuate.

Translation: "So,
this is the mud,

"when it's half dry you
can see all the cracks

"but when it's fully dry
it's soft like desert sand.

"The mud is salty, the
salt content is very high.

"Whoa, yes, that's salty.

"Very salty, this place
used to be full of trees

"but now it's like the desert,
vegetation can't grow here anymore."

The mud that's leaking out

is not like the mud
in your back yard,

it's full of various heavy
metals and gas is coming up

with the carbon
dioxide and methane

which is also very
unhealthy for people

so it's really an environmental
catastrophe for the region.

From above there is
little evidence to explain

where all this noxious
mud is coming from.

So, why did this catastrophic
mud flow start so abruptly.

What's clearly happened
here is something extraordinary.

People don't just build
buildings in and around places

where mud's going
to spew out of the land.

The mud that drowns
this site is bubbling hot,

this points towards its source.

The complex ever
shifting tectonics

below the 17,000
islands of Indonesia

mean that this island chain
sits on top of a violent geology.

Indonesia's a, a lively place
geologically there's earthquakes,

there's volcanoes but
people have been living there

for thousands of years.

This area itself it not necessarily
directly affected by volcanoes.

But below porong,

geothermal heat is pushing
a mix of underground water

and mud up to the surface
where it erupts as a mud volcano.

But the amount of mud coming out

of the lusi mud volcano
confounded experts

because it could only
come from one place.

The lusi mud volcano

is tapping in to a much
larger geological phenomenon.

The gases emitted
with the Lucy mudflow

link it to a large active
volcano system 10 miles away.

This system can produce an
endless supply of mud that powers

through a network
of natural tunnels.

But this still doesn't explain

why the lusi mud flow
suddenly started here.

There's the real question

as to whether this is entirely
a natural phenomenon,

natural disaster or is
there something else

that's gone on, something
maybe from a human perspective

that's helped to trigger this.

There were suspicions

that an oil and gas
exploration company

drilling in porong
were to blame.

The process of
drilling for natural gas

is really very tricky,

when you drill
down into the earth

you go through layers of rock

that keep everything sealed in,

you're punching a
hole through that rock

and the gas wants to
squirt up out of that hole

and anything that's mixed with
the gas, water, oil, muck, mud

that will come
squirting up as well.

The gas itself is
under huge pressure,

it's like opening a
soda bottle you know,

and the way it all
comes foaming out.

Some claim that in 2006
below the district of porong,

the unthinkable happened.

A company drilling an
exploratory well for natural gas

basically bungled
the drilling operation

and that allowed pressurised water
and mud to flow up to the surface

from deep underground.

The theory is that this
drilling just 200 yards away

from the lusi mud eruption

fractured an old fault
system that links porong

to the active volcano.

Now, there was no way to
stop the deadly flow of mud.

But the drilling company
pointed to yet another cause.

An earthquake a couple
of hundred miles away

two days before might
have opened up a fault

or somehow set
off this flow of mud.

The drilling company
claim the earthquake

created the pressure to
reactive the fault system.

Many scientists
dispute this possibility.

But those whose homes lay
buried in mud are in no doubt.

Translation: "Why did
they have to do the drilling

"in a residential area?

"Couldn't they have
done it somewhere else

"in the forest or something
where there are no houses?"

Muawanah and her
neighbours have received

a small amount of compensation
from the drilling company.

Translation: "They gave us
20% and then they said at first

"that they were going to pay
the remaining 80% in cash

"but they didn't."

Today, the volcano is still erupting
further coating the surrounding area

in mud from the
depths of the earth.

The landscape has been
fundamentally radically altered

but actually at heart this
is a tragic human story

there are people still
fighting for compensation.

For the residents of porong

life has completely
changed since the eruption.

It's completely
disrupted people's lives,

people have had
to move from jobs

from their religious
shrines from,

from everyday life
and be relocated.

With the local economy in ruins,

muawanah and her friends

now have precious few
ways to make a living.

Thanks to tourism people
wanted to come and see this,

disaster tourism they're
now able to act as guides,

to talk people through
their experiences,

to tell them the story
and even though it's not

what they would have
chosen actually this is now

become the source
of their new livelihood.

In the heartlands of Argentine,

the remains of a town are
set within a tortured landscape.

A white substance
clings to every surface.

Painting this place in a
bleak monochrome hue.

And while there appears
to be little evidence

of what caused such destruction

it is that bleached layer
that holds the answers.

While most disaster zones
lie deserted, this one does not.

Pablo (translation):
"I'm Pablo novak,

"the only resident
left in the ruins.

"I stayed and I was sure someone
would come back eventually.

"It used to be so famous,

"so many people used to
come here from all over."

These are the ruins
of villa epecuen.

For much of the 20th century

this was a luxurious
lakeside retreat.

Translation: "This was
started as the requio almaza,

"a dance hall

"and because the room was
small and lots of people came

"it also used it for a theatre

"with theatre companies
coming from Buenos Aires."

The town's main attraction
however lay beside it,

the mineral and salt rich lake

famed for its supposed
healing powers

no-one foresaw it's
true destructive potential.

In 1985 an unprecedented
period of rainfall began

and soon the town's flood
defences were overcome.

The flood waters gradually
slowly consumed the entire town

and by 1993 it was submerged
under 30 feet of water

effectively becoming
a modern day Atlantis.

In the decades since
the water has receded,

leaving behind the
evidence of what occurred.

Translation: "Everything
that you can see now

"hadn't been seen for 20 years."

And the twist is this
highly saline water

left the town covered
in a thick layer of salt

giving it this
unique appearance.

For Pablo, the
town's last resident,

the battle to remain continuous.

Translation: "As
long as I can walk talk

"and have a good
memory I will stay here."

From silent cataclysms

to the violent forces
beneath our feet,

mystifying natural events
and man made calamities

it appears that humans
have made a habit

of placing themselves
in the firing line.

Our final sight stands
over 800 miles north

of the arctic circle on
the icy shores of Svalbard.

Here, immediate
peril looms large

but the cause of that danger
threatens the entire planet.

Svalbard feels like it's
on the edge of the earth.

It is a brutal landscape,

cold, barren and fierce.

In winter the place is
completely covered with snow

and in darkness and in
summer you get 24 hours daylight

and so it's a real
area of extremes.

The town itself is the world's
northern most settlement

of 1000 people or more,

you can't live any
further north than this.

As the seasons change
and the snow melts,

crumbling ruins appear on the
mountainside above the town.

But these old wrecks aren't
the only deserted structures here.

Most of the town seems to
be doing fine and it's populated

but then you have these
pockets that are abandoned.

We're used to seeing
old abandoned buildings

on the brink of collapse
but these buildings look fine.

There's nobody there
and it seems very odd

that you've got something
that is clearly relatively modern

it's not, not much
has happened to it

but why is nobody living there?

The first clue to
what's happening here

maybe found in those
collapsing ruins above.

On the edge of town are these
old industrial looking features,

just standing there
forlorn and forgotten.

The way these buildings
have fallen in to this condition

makes you wonder
if the same fate

awaits those modern
buildings in town.

A deadly threat
hovers over this town

and it could yet have far
reaching consequences.

The issues that are facing
this town are quite serious

and in fact potentially deadly.

Already two lives
have been lost.

What's happening
here is terrifying.

What we're seeing here is
the beginnings of something

that could soon be
beyond our control

and the destructive forces
unleashed could be catastrophic.

Svalbard was a distant
and perilous place

to visit in the 19th century,

over 100 years ago this
land held little value for most.

Originally the only people

who would go to this far
northern collection of islands

were whalers and
people hunting seals

but in 1906 an American
named John longyear

came here looking for coal.

Early 20th century, late
19th century the world

is going through changes
which are driven by coal.

So, a resource such as
coal found in an area like this

is potentially
very very valuable.

The town of longyearbyen

grew on the back
of the coal industry

but in the modern
world the lustre of coal

has diminished and structures
like these have paid the price.

More recently coal has become
a, a sort of more of a dirty word

than a something people
want and so the actual

scaling back of coal mining
globally has happened

but it's also happened
in, in Svalbard.

A slump in the market could mean
less demand for housing in the town

but there is more to this
story than first meets the eye.

The apartments that
have been abandoned,

that is not related
to the decline of coal,

there's a completely
different problem there.

These people have
been forced out

because of a deadly
threat to those buildings.

With all that mining in
the area over the years

you've got to wonder if
that's created an issue.

Has it destabilised
the land somehow?

What danger lurks here

and why have virtually
brand new buildings

been abandoned
to the arctic tundra?

This group of
condemned buildings

are deemed unsafe
by the local authorities.

There's nothing
wrong with the building,

it's structurally sound.

The problem is the location.

Something has changed
that makes it more dangerous.

It's a terrible feeling to
see all this empty buildings

standing around and
nobody can use them.

Nobody lives up here anymore.

Until recently,

niels lorensen lived in a
similar apartment near here.

And he's seen more and more
places become off limits to residents.

There are red zones, a
lot of places in this area

yeah, and a lot of people
are affected by this red zones.

And it cost er, the community
and people a lot of money.

We have a kindergarten,

both my kids went there and
that kindergarten is closed now.

It's a sad sad story.

During the summer months
those apartments are not at risk

but when winter comes
the threat level rises.

A few years ago niels
experienced this first hand.

I was just cleaning my house

and suddenly lots of
big bang in the house

and straight away I understood
that this was an avalanche

and it was big, it was er,
enormous and had a lot of speed.

I went in my daughter's
bedroom and er,

I could see
straight out her wall

because of the
building has broke apart.

Niels apartment can be
seen in aerial footage taken

before the avalanche struck

but it wasn't the first victim.

Other buildings have also
been destroyed in recent years.

In 2015 a massive sudden
avalanche hit the town,

imagine a huge sheet of ice snow

and stone crashing
in to these houses

with such force that it
literally lifted them up

and deposited them
across the street.

It soon emerged that eight
people had been injured

and two people had been killed.

Nobody believed
that this could be

so large avalanche
that could hit the houses

and kill people and I think no,

nobody thought
that could happen.

While avalanche barriers
stand above the town today,

for those hollowed out apartments
the risks are just too great.

The danger that
those other apartments

faced in recent years,

this place now faces
that same threat,

come winter they'll
be right in the firing line

and the order has come down

to a completely evacuate
and demolish this place.

Today it's not only
those apartments

that lie inside this red zone,

these structures weren't
built in a dangerous location,

the location has
become dangerous.

So, what caused this?

These collapsing structures
on the outskirts of town

hold the answers.

And there's a startling
conclusion being drawn.

The irony here is
that the very industry

that built this community
also endangers it

and that's the process
of mining and burning coal

which releases so
much carbon dioxide

into the atmosphere that
ultimately it starts to warm the planet.

At the local university,

glaciologist Heidi
sevestre has been studying

the changes effecting Svalbard.

At the black curve is the
changes in temperatures

globally for the past 120 years

and the orange
curve is the changes

in temperatures in Svalbard.

When we look what's happening
for the past two or three decades

there the temperature's
really diverge

and we see the
temperatures in Svalbard

increase twice as fast
as the rest of the world.

Since 1971 on average
temperatures here have risen

by four degrees celsius,

this is the fastest
warming place on earth.

It's like an exaggerated
version of global warming

if you will but it has
deadly consequences

and it's really changing
the local environment

and the people living
there have to dramatically

change their lifestyles
to cope with it.

For the homes that
have been lost already

and for those now
in the firing line

this drastic temperature change
has made large avalanches

a very real threat.

Today we can absolutely draw
a link between climate change

and the 2015 avalanche

and unfortunately
our predictions define

that there will be more and
more events like this in the future.

Today avalanches are
not the only consequence

of climate change
facing Svalbard.

It's glaciers are rapidly
receding and the archipelago seas

no longer freeze in winter.

The location may be remote

but these alarming events
are a warning to us all.

Arctic ridges like this
are kind of like the canary

in the coalmine,
whatever's happening

to the whole planet is
going to happen faster here

because of the weather

there is so extreme
in the first place.

It's human nature not to
appreciate the scale of danger

until it's right in front of us,

until a catastrophe
is actually happening

and if you wait until the snow
and ice is sliding down the mountain

toward you it's
already too late.

From earth's violent tectonic
forces to manmade calamities,

disaster zones across our planet
remind us of natures awesome power

and the perils of
under estimating it.

But they also bear testament
to human kinds ability

to adapt thrive and overcome.

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