All language subtitles for Mysteries.from.Above.S03E08.1080p.WEB.h264-BAWD_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR: Satellites above an iconic
American city

make an alarming discovery.

Vast ruins stand out
in the middle of the Saharan Desert.

Drones uncover a puzzling stone
mystery perched

high in the Andes.

And a massive,

modern metropolis in the Mongolian
desert totally deserted.

- Where is everybody?

NARRATOR: Everywhere
we look on our planet,

there's evidence of the past.

In nature. In buildings. In relics.

Each holds a mystery that technology
now allows us to see from above.

What new secrets are revealed?

Across the globe, more than half
of the world's population -

4.4 billion people -
live in cities, each full of hidden

stories and secrets that are best
revealed with a view from above.

Flying high above New York City,

cutting edge technology
discovers something shocking.

InSar satellites -
designed to detect

variations in the earth's surface -
uncover an alarming increase in

the rate of a bizarre and disturbing
phenomena called 'subsidence'.

- Subsidence is a geological
term for the downward vertical

movement of the Earth's surface.

Basically it's sinking.
- Hold on, did you say sinking?

So New York City is sinking?

- And they found this out
- from the sky? How's that work?

- InSAR satellites are especially
good at detecting

and measuring subsidence.

With each pass over the earth,
they track ground deformation

and changes that occur
gradually over months or years.

- They can cover huge areas,
making them

ideal for urban
environments like New York.

- Subsidence has been occurring
where New York City now sits

since the end of the last ice age.

As the ice sheets retreated,
the land once covered by the ice,

north of the city,
began to rise up and the land just

south of the ice, where New York
City is today, began to sink.

That slow response to melting
of the ice sheets continues today,

at a rate of about 1 to 2
millimetres every year.

- Okay, so what's the big deal?

NARRATOR: Tracking from the skies,
the satellites over New York

find parts of the city are sinking
at a pace of 4mm a year -

that means the Big Apple is
going down far faster than expected.

But what is behind this
terrifying drop?

What kind of forces can sink a city?

Could this be caused by sinkholes?

- Over the past decade,
we are seeing more and more of them

across the world.

And they're getting bigger,
deeper and a lot more dangerous.

- Sinkholes tend to form in cities
for one of two reasons:

either a section of a street
collapses

because of a water main break or
an old pipe giving way or,

you get changes to natural
water-drainage patterns.

- In recent years, more and more
sinkholes have left enormous

gaping pits in downtown Manhattan
- the middle of East 89th

Street on the Upper East Side
and Riverside Drive on the

Upper West Side being two examples
that happened only days apart.

- It's believed that these
new multi-foot-deep

depressions are the result
of the city's deeply outdated

underground infrastructure, which
has an average age of 66 years.

- And with 7,000 miles
worth of water mains,

that's a lot of old pipes
posing silent threats.

- So could the increasing size

and frequency of sinkholes be
bringing down the city?

- Unlikely.

Deep and dangerous as they are,
these sinkholes alone are not

enough to take down a city
the size of New York.

- So what is
happening in New York City?

NARRATOR: Perhaps there's
a clue in another sinking city

almost 12,000 km away,
Shanghai, China.

- China's most populated city has
dropped more than six feet

since 1921.

The result has been devastating
flooding in the city

and getting worse every year.

- The problem stems from Shanghai's
rapid 19th century growth,

stretched to supply factories
and drinking water to a population

that by 1900 had
tripled to more than one million.

Groundwater that had supported
the Chinese trading port quickly

became strained.

- And it kept going.

The problem got so bad by the 1950s

and 1960s that the ground was
sinking by four inches a year!

- The government took action in
1963,

banning the overuse of wells
but the decline continued

- by the mid-1960s the city had
sunk about 16 more inches.

And it's only going to get worse!

Official projections say water
levels could rise several

inches by 2050,
threatening waterfront areas.

NARRATOR: Could this be
happening to New York City?

Is the Big Apple's drinking
causing its sinking?

Is the loss of groundwater
the problem?

- It's unlikely that this is
just a groundwater thing.

Groundwater management has been
a part of New York City's

infrastructure for decades
- between 1996 and 2007,

the city transitioned
away from using any groundwater

wells as part of their drinking
water supply.

- So, if it's not water going out
maybe it's water coming in

that's the problem?

NARRATOR: The satellite
view over New York City,

shows that the areas sinking
fastest are the edges of the city,

where New York lies
less than 2 meters above sea level.

- Could the rising sea levels be
pushing the city down?

It's no secret that storms
and hurricanes have

increased in ferocity in the past
decade with devastating results.

- In 2012, Hurricane Sandy killed
more than 40 New Yorkers,

destroyed approximately 300 homes,

and left tens of thousands
of people without power.

- In 2021, Hurricane Ida left
more than a dozen people dead in

New York City, many after they were
unable to escape flooding basements.

- In New York City, sea levels have
risen a foot over the last

100 years - that's a rate
of about 1.2 inches per decade.

- That may not seem like a large
increase, the implications are huge.

Sea levels are expected to rise
anywhere from 8-30 inches

by the 2050's.

And as much as 15-75 inches
by the end of the century.

NARRATOR: Are rising sea levels
destined to consume -

and sink - New York City?

- While rising sea levels are very
much a threat, a recent study

of 99 coastal cities around the
world found that subsidence - the

sinking of the ground - may pose a
bigger problem than sea-level rise.

Why?

Because most cities surveyed,

the land is subsiding
faster than sea levels are rising.

- So what's causing this
increase in subsidence?

NARRATOR: Perhaps a clue lies
closer to home over 1000 km

away in Chicago.

- Scientists from Northwestern
University in Chicago have

discovered that increased
temperatures underground is

making Chicago's clay soil contract,
causing the Windy City to sink.

- What they discovered is that the
heat escaping from basements

and parking garages,
sewers, tunnels,

other underground infrastructure is
actually shifting the landscape

and its causing Chicago
to slowly - but definitively - sink.

- Much of Chicago was
built on a glacial lakebed,

which means very clay-ey soils.

This type of soil can swell
when heated -

causing buildings built on top it
to settle faster than normal.

- The study showed that the
ground could swell

something like 12 millimetres,

and the structures could sink
something like 8 millimetres.

And that may not
sound like very much but

those small changes can be
devastating for buildings

that are not designed for that
kind of movement.

- Nobody talks about this,
but it's a real thing -

scientists call it
'underground climate change.'

- Could New York City be heating
itself to destruction?

NARRATOR: In 2023, researchers from
the US Geological Survey

and the University of Rhode Island
decided to investigate.

- What the team studied were InSAR
satellite images collected from

orbiting satellites that actually
map subsidence all across the city.

- The results showed as expected,

that all of New York City as a whole
is sinking 1 to 2 millimetres

every year
because of post-glacial relaxation.

But, and this is the big part-
they discovered that those

parts of the city where big
buildings are built on fill

and sediment are sinking faster,
up to 4 millimetres every year.

- Could New York City
just be too heavy?!

NARRATOR: To test this theory,
the scientists calculated

the collective weight of more than a
million buildings in New York City.

- They estimated that

NYC's buildings collectively
weigh 1.68 trillion pounds -

equivalent to roughly 1.9 million
fully fuelled Boeing 747s.

- And, that's just the buildings!

That's not the contents, the people,
the vehicles - all that other stuff!

NARRATOR: To determine what
part of the cities were bearing

the most weight,

the scientists divided the city into
a grid of 100-by-100-meter squares.

This allowed them
to calculate the downward pressure

caused by the weight of the
buildings, across the whole city.

- The research suggested that
indeed,

the weight of buildings is causing
increased subsidence in those

parts of the city vulnerable to this
immense pressure.

- The skyscrapers
anchored to underlying bedrock

in the upper parts of the city,
not much of a subsidence problem.

But, the hundreds of buildings
sitting on spongy

materials like clay and artificial
fill on the lower lying

edges of the city those are very
prone to compression.

- And it's important
to remember that this is

happening in a city where
the sea level is

projected to rise between 8 and 30
inches by 2050 - this extra sinking

factor increases New York City's
vulnerability to coastal storms.

- The likelihood of parts
of New York City eventually being

permanently under water is
inevitable.

The ground is going down,
and the water's coming up.

At some point,
those two levels are gonna meet.

- Because we have rising sea levels
and sinking

buildings at the same time,
this means that coastal flooding

is gonna happen a lot faster
than predicted by existing models.

- It's a really scary projection -
but, thanks to what we now know,

cities like New York can much
better plan and actually prepare

for the long-term impact of sea
level rise and coastal subsidence.

NARRATOR: Revealing these hidden
forces sinking New York City

and other cities like it around the
world before its too late is

only possible with a high
tech view from above.

In the deep central Sahara,
in the African country of Niger,

a view from above reveals
a sprawling, empty, ancient mystery.

- What the heck is this place - it
looks like a giant ant colony!

- It looks like a small,
fortified city -

but slap
bang in the middle of nowhere!

- And it looks totally empty!

- Abandoned cities are not
unusual in the desert.

- But most desert
settlements found in this

part of Africa are simple
in their layout

and scope - this one has fortified
walls, watchtowers and passageways.

NARRATOR: This unusual site is
called the Ksars of Djado.

Built between 800 to 1000 years ago,
the architects of this site

have long been a mystery -
no one knows who built it.

- It would have been
an enormous undertaking,

it would have required you know,
a lot of elaborate planning,

a lot of skill, a lot of time
to create what is a spectacular

fortress in the heart of northern
Africa.

- Why go to so much
trouble to create a massive walled

fortress like this,
in the middle of nowhere?

What was it meant to protect?
Why are the Ksars of Djado, here?

NARRATOR: A clue to this mystery may
lie with another abandoned

desert city almost 3000 km
away in the Golan Heights where

a view from above reveals
the desert fortress of Nimrod.

Like the Ksars of Djado, Nimrod
lies empty

and silent - another walled city
left to crumble in the sand.

- Dated as early as 30 CE, Nimrod
was built to guard a major access

to Damascus, a key centre of trade
on the Trans-Saharan trade route.

- The Trans-Saharan trade routes
connected the Mediterranean

coast to the West African savannah
and the sub-Saharan region.

- These routes were used
to transport a variety of goods,

including gold, ivory, salt,
and slaves.

- It's impossible to overstate
the significance of these routes,

in African history - really,
in world history.

They were also a major
source of cultural exchange -

traders brought goods, ideas,

and technologies from one part
of the world to another, leading to

the spread of religions, languages,
and other cultural traditions.

- One example of a technology that
was introduced to Africa

through the Trans-Saharan trade
routes is the camel, which was

domesticated in the Middle East and
brought to Africa by Arab traders.

- The camel was an invaluable
tool for trade and transport

in the Sahara Desert, as it's
able to travel really long distances

across the desert with minimal water
and can carry heavy loads.

So the use of camels completely
revolutionizes trade

and transport in the region and it

also facilitated the growth
of the Trans-Saharan trade routes.

- At the peak of the caravan trade,
the average caravan was

made up of 1,000 camels and some
caravans were as large as 12,000!

NARRATOR: Could this be
why Djado is here -

built as a fortress to protect
a crucial trade route?

- It's possible, because Djado was
once smack in the middle of this

complex network of trade routes all
across Africa and the Middle East.

- It's perfectly situated on this
busy route, the Ksars of Djado

would have thrived as a bustling
and prosperous centre of trade.

- The city was so successful, it
swelled to be the biggest

of its kind - it would have been
a jewel of commerce in the desert.

- It's sorta like an early,
Saharan Las Vegas!

- But, if the Ksars of Djado were
so big and so strong

and so prosperous then why did
the city basically just disappear?

NARRATOR: Could a closer look at
Nimrod from above reveal more clues?

- We can see several structures
here that were clearly

created to defend
the city from attacking raiders.

- And, Nimrod has a well documented
history rife with conflict

and destruction, underlining
the reality that a city this rich,

is a target for conquest.

- Nimrod withstood a lot of attacks,

a lot of raids over the centuries,
but it was finally

sacked for good when the Assyrian
empire fell to a coalition that was

led by Babylonia and Medea at the
end of the seventh century BCE.

- Is that what happened to these
grand and wealthy Ksars of Djado?

NARRATOR: Perhaps there's a clue
almost 9000 km away,

in the Gobi Desert of
Western Inner Mongolia with another

abandoned desert city, Khara-Khoto.

- Founded in 1032 CE as the capital
of the Western Xia Dynasty,

this city was also
a thriving trade centre,

located on an important
trade route through Asia.

- But, just like Nimrod,

the rich city caught
the eye of unfriendly invaders.

It was captured
by Genghis Khan in 1226.

- Khara-Khoto actually
flourished under Mongol rule.

During Kubla Kahn's time, the city
expanded to 3 times its original

size, and was even mentioned
by Marco Polo in his travel logs.

- Under the Mongols, the people
were able to enjoy a peaceful

existence for about 150 years,
and that's

until the Ming dynasty turned up in
1372 and laid siege to the city.

- Now, no one knows exactly how
Khara-Khoto fell, but the most

commonly accepted theory is that the
Ming rulers diverted the

Ejin River, the city's only water
source, that flowed just outside

the fortress thus denying the city's
troops and inhabitants water.

- Is this what
happened to Ksars of Djado?

Did an outside enemy wipe
out the people here?

- It doesn't look like it.

While the city was almost
attacked in the 18th

and 19th century by all these
waves of nomadic raiders, it wasn't

until the arrival of the French
military in 1923 that the

Ksars of Djado
lost their independence.

NARRATOR: If the people of the Ksars
of Djado were not starved out

or killed by a foreign power,
why and how did they disappear?

- How did this spectacular desert
city end up becoming a ghost town?

NARRATOR: An answer may be found
just over 1600 km away in Mali,

home of the legendary Saharan city,
Timbuktu.

- Once dubbed the 'city of gold'
Timbuktu was a prosperous

commercial hub for the ivory,
salt and gold trades.

It was also,
a hub for the slave trade.

NARRATOR: Timbuktu is still
going today - but barely.

- Timbuktu is struggling to survive
and it's this modern struggle that

holds a crucial clue to the downfall
of the ancient Ksars of Djado.

- It's being eaten up by the desert.

- When it was built in the 5th
century BCE, Timbuktu,

like Djado, thrived in a lush
liveable landscape.

But now, the desert is moving in
and the city is

suffering from rapid
desertification.

- Desertification is an increasingly
widespread problem as climate

change modifies weather patterns,

leaving people to deal with hyper
arid conditions.

- The Sahara Desert is no exception
- scientists have observed

that in the last century, the Saraha
has expanded by 10 percent.

And the problem is especially
bad in Timbuktu - in Mali,

the Sahara there is expanding
at a rate of 48 km every year!

- So could a similar thing have
happened to Ksars of Djado?

- It's possible.

These ruins are 800 to 1000 years
old - and that means that they

were built at a time when this
part of the Sahara was much wetter.

NARRATOR: And just like Timbuktu,
relentless desert swallowed Djado.

- So it's very likely that what
pushed people to abandon

Djado was the lack of a clean
water supply.

You had this lush landscape,
and then it all turned into desert,

and that environment was just
too harsh for humans.

- Djado was then pretty
much unlivable,

and by the early 1900s, it
was abandoned.

- The people are long gone
but the Ksars of Djado were

so well constructed that the
abandonment of the city did

not mean it was destroyed.

NARRATOR: Isolated from the outside
world and built to last,

the great Ksars of Djado
stand tall today.

A long-forgotten ghost
city, its secrets

uncovered by a view from above.

On the densely forested slopes
of the eastern Peruvian Andes,

over 600 km north of Lima

a view from above reveals an ancient
wonder.

Sitting high
on the mountain ridge, 3000 meters

above sea level, this mysterious
stone site is known as Kuelap.

- Look at that wall!

NARRATOR: This epic structure
surrounds all of Kuelap with a

length of over 1000 meters - and, in
some places stands 20 meters tall.

- It's constructed from limestone
blocks -

some with an estimated weight of 3
tons - that's as heavy as a hippo!

- That wall is on the scale
of a fortress - is this structure

an abandoned military base or
the site of an old castle?

NARRATOR: Is Kuelap
the ruins of a fortified city?

- Even though it may look,
uh, as a defensive construction,

we have to take into consideration
that there is no parapet.

- Okay so if there's no
parapet like you'd usually

see around a fortress -
what about that huge, long wall -

isn't that also a classic
fortress feature?

- In some parts, the surrounding
wall is 20 meters high.

In other parts it's only six.

NARRATOR: Some parts of the wall
are far too low to provide any

protection - and there's something
else missing at Kuelap,

something crucial to survival.

- There's no water inside.

Water has to be
brought from the springs that we

have around Kuelap
or from the river.

So knowing that there is no water
reservoirs, no springs inside,

we can completely disregard the idea
that Kuelap was a fortress.

NARRATOR: So what is this place?

A view from above reveals
a network of strange stone

circles across Kuelap. Could these
mysterious rings provide any clues?

- Did they hold water -
is this like an ancient spa?

Or were they food storage
structures,

like modern day farm silos?

- Those stone circles are really
intriguing-

maybe they have some
sort of ritual purpose?

NARRATOR: Perhaps clues
can be uncovered

halfway across the world
at Mycenae in Greece,

where a view from above reveals
another set

of mysterious stone circles.

Excavations at Mycenae
revealed that these large stone

circles are grave sites.

- Those circles contained
skeletons from the royal families -

accompanied by a treasure
trove of their personal stuff.

- So could the strange stone
circles at Kuelap have been

part of a burial
site like we see at Mycenae?

Could they be tombs?

NARRATOR: Investigations at Kuelap
have uncovered a clue,

human remains.

- That is definitely related
to the importance to venerate

our grandfathers
and great-grandfathers even after

they have died a long time ago.

- So if human bones were
found in these circles,

these must be the remains of tombs.

NARRATOR: But a closer look at these
circles reveals something

unexpected.

- There's evidence of some
kind of wooden structure where

they could put the bed where
they slept

and also where
they can store other goods.

Then we have the kitchen area
where the fire is located.

- It's basically a multi-familiar
building that is a circular

construction that has a diameter
that can vary between five

and 10 meters.

There's some characteristics
that are always inside these huts.

The tomb where they kept some
bones of their ancestors is usually

located in the centre
of the building.

NARRATOR: There are more than 400 of
these multi-family houses in Kuelap.

- If we make the math
with the amount of people that can

live in one of these huts,
we are talking about at its height,

a population of around 2,500 people
living in Kuelap.

- So if those circles were once
houses to a lot of people,

who were they?

NARRATOR: A wider view
from above reveals another clue,

a dramatic rectangular structure.

- This one is the biggest building
in Kuelap. It's called a Kallanka.

It's a symbol of power of the Incas.

- Finding the ruins of Kallanka
is like finding a giant sign

that says, 'The Inca were here'.

It's an unambiguous stamp that this
place was definitely

part of the Inca Empire.

NARRATOR: So did the Inca
build Kuelap?

- Kuelap isn't very far
from the world-famous Machu Picchu

which was built by the Inca - is
this another one of their creations?

- According to the radiocarbon
dating's that we have,

Kuelap was built around 600 AD.

- Machu Picchu is dated to almost
a 1000 years later than that -

so Kuelap was built
long before the Inca started up.

NARRATOR: But if the Inca aren't
behind this ancient site, who is?

- Kuelap
and all the settlements around were

built by the Chachapoya culture.

Chachapoya is a generic
name that the Incas started

using for the people that
live in this huge

area of approximately 200,000 square
kilometres.

- There's a lot of mystery
surrounding these people

and their culture.

- We know they thrived in a region
of Northern Peru from about 900

to 1400 CE, but they didn't have a
written language, so much

of what we know of them comes from
studying the ruins they left behind.

- But, wait,
if the Chachapoya built Kuelap,

then what's with all
the Inca stuff here?

NARRATOR: From 1438 to 1533
the Incan Empire grew rapidly -

becoming the largest empire ever
seen in the Americas.

As they expanded north through Peru,
the Inca conquered Kuelap

and ruled over the Chachapoya
people.

But around the mid 16th century,
Kuelap was suddenly abandoned.

- Why would the mighty
Inca Empire go to all

the trouble of conquering
this place,

putting up all these buildings
and then just abandon Kuelap?

NARRATOR: Perhaps there's a clue
more than 12,000 kilometres

away near the Sea of Galilee,
with another abandoned city - Gamla.

- Gamla has plenty in common with
Kuelap - a defensive stone wall,

residential housing and dedicated
space for rituals and celebration.

NARRATOR: Like Kuelap, Gamla was
a thriving city but in the 1st

century Roman soldiers attacked,
leaving destruction in their wake.

- Was Kuelap abandoned
because it was invaded?

- Is this what led to Kuelap's
abandonment?

- That's exactly what happened here.

In the mid-1500's,
the Spanish conquered the area

and ended the Inca's
70-year reign in Kuelap.

NARRATOR: The conquered Inca
and Chachapoya were rounded up

and Kuelap was abandoned.

Since then -
Kuelap has stood frozen in time,

an ancient testament to a once
mighty city.

But now - the view
from above reveals Kuelap has a more

modern mystery to be solved.

- One of the mysteries
of La Fortaleza de Kuelap is

the collapse of the southern
perimeter wall in 2022.

NARRATOR: A huge
stretch of this giant wall,

almost 30 metres long -
simply gave out.

- People immediately began to ask
if this monument is a thousand

years old and has withstood time,
why is it falling down now?

NARRATOR: What modern phenomena
could be causing this

kind of damage to the wall?

- Is Kuelap a victim of natural
forces?

NARRATOR: Peru is
located in the Ring of Fire -

where more than 80% of the world's
largest earthquakes occur.

- The ring of fire is this giant
belt that wraps around the

Pacific ocean where lots of our
planet's tectonic plates meet.

When they slip beneath each other,

that's when you get all
kinds of earthquakes.

NARRATOR: Two earthquakes did
hit the region in 2022 -

but neither were strong enough
to cause this level of destruction.

- So we can cross earthquake
damage off the list.

Why else would the wall at Kuelap
come down so quickly -

especially after standing
strong for centuries?

NARRATOR: Perhaps,
the collapse of the wall was caused

not by outside forces,
but instead, forces within.

- We have elements here,

some clues to solve the mystery of
the history of the collapses here.

Water has
accumulated behind this wall,

it's been turned a little bit
into a dam, and this interior core

made of mud and stone, has gone from
solid to be a little more plastic.

And it's sitting on a sloping
terrain. So it begins pushing down.

And the perimeter wall,
however solid

and massive it is, cannot hold
the weight of this plastic core.

And this is how
the collapse has happened.

We have solved one mystery.

Now we have confirmed that water
infiltration is the ultimate

cause of the collapse
of the perimeter walls.

But obviously,
another mystery remains. Why now?

- What could possibly cause this
wall,

that's stood strong for about a 1000
years, to just start crumbling?

NARRATOR: Scientists believe
the cause of this problem

comes from above.

- Because of the great amount
of precipitation in this area,

one of the main theories is
the infiltration of rainwater.

- Rain? That is the culprit?

I can see how an earthquake might
cause damage like this, but rain!

Is it really that powerful?

- The rainy season here is very
heavy,

perhaps up to 3000 millimetres
a year.

NARRATOR: But why now,
after 1000 years,

is rain such a threat to the wall -
and all of Kuelap?

- So, we use data from some
weather stations

and mostly satellites to reconstruct
the patterns of precipitation

for the last four decades.

And that was a real discovery.

The precipitation has been
growing over time,

it's about 4% higher today than it
was in the 1980s.

And out of seven historically
high precipitation

months in those 40 years, four
occurred in the last five years.

So there is an increasing trend,

and that is becoming more
critical in the last few years.

NARRATOR: One year after
the collapse of the wall,

Peru is experiencing what's called
a Coastal El Nino, a weather

event that's expected to bring more
torrential rain to the area.

- The amount of water that
it's receiving today,

due to climate change,
may be exceeding its capabilities.

NARRATOR: Recent satellite imagery
has revealed that the surface

water off the coast of Peru is
about 6 degrees higher than normal.

- When you've got warm water
like this, it adds heat to the air,

which means it can hold more water,
which means bigger rainfall.

- And bigger rainfall
means more water is

getting into the core
of Kuelap's wall.

- If we don't mitigate
the infiltration,

the core is going to become plastic
and push the perimeter walls

out, and the whole monument
is going to collapse.

- It's a race against the clock
- can you figure out

how to protect the site before the
next round of catastrophic rain.

- It would be such a tragedy
if the site of Kuelap washed away -

there is so much history and still
so much to be discovered there.

NARRATOR: Scientists are determined
to preserve this magnificent

city - and thanks to their research,
they now know what needs to be done.

- We should be mitigating
the infiltration.

And when that has stabilized,

then we can reconstruct
the perimeter walls.

With the goal of preserving
this for future generations,

for everyone to enjoy.

NARRATOR: A mystery solved -
and a discovery that could

help save an ancient city
all with a view from above.

High over the arid plains
of Northern China, in the remote

desert of Inner Mongolia a view from
above reveals something unexpected.

- It looks utterly abandoned
- what happened here?

- It's totally empty!
Where did everyone go?

- It totally looks like something
out of a science fiction movie!

NARRATOR: The official name
of the city is 'Kangbashi New Town'

but it's often referred to by the
area in which it's built - Ordos.

The story of Ordos
begins in the early 2000's

when the Chinese
government began to build

the city in the Ordos Desert,
spending one billion dollars.

- Ordos was designed to provide
everything a modern city

could possibly need or desire,

all for a population of at least
a million people.

- So where are they?
Where are all the people?

- It looks apocalyptic - like,
something just wiped everyone out!

- Was this city emptied by a sudden,
massive disaster?

NARRATOR: Perhaps a clue can be
found more than 6000 km

away in Ukraine, home to one of the
biggest disasters in modern times.

- On April 25 and 26, 1986,
a faulty Soviet

reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant exploded.

NARRATOR: As the radiation
spread through the air,

it covered more than 40% of Europe.

- Today, almost forty years later,
there is still a 30 kilometre

'exclusion zone' around the plant
- scientists estimate this

zone around Chernobyl will not be
habitable for up to 20,000 years.

- It looks eerily similar to Ordos
all these empty buildings,

sort of frozen in time and empty.

- Did a similar disaster
happen to Ordos?

- No records exist that Ordos
suffered

anything like Chernobyl - the city
isn't a designated danger zone

and is actually perfectly
safe to live in.

- In fact,
the region is quite prosperous.

I mean yes,
it's essentially a desert,

but the landscape is rich
in resources - particularly, coal.

- And that's why Ordos was built
here.

A coal boom in the early 2000's
compelled the local

government to splurge on this
new development.

- So, if Ordos is considered
a completely safe place to live

and it was supported by a rich
industry, why is it empty?

NARRATOR: There may be a clue
far to the southwest in Namibia,

in another abandoned desert city.

- Once a prosperous diamond mining
town, Kolmanskop was abandoned

when the diamonds ran out and better
resources were found elsewhere.

- And ever since, the fast-moving
Namibian Desert has been

closing in and literally,
swallowing up the town.

- Satellite observations
found that the average rate at which

the dunes in this area moved
ranged from 7 to 32 meters per year!

- The Kolmanskop is not alone.

The Namibian desert has been
swallowing more than just the towns.

NARRATOR: One of the most famous
examples of the desert's power to

consume, can be found over 400
kilometres away,

on Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

- The waters off this place are
famous for their strong currents,

dense fogs, and treacherous sand
banks that constantly move.

These extreme climatic conditions

when combined with strong
sandstorms have been considered

the cause of the sinking
of over a thousand ships.

NARRATOR: The eerie remnants
of long-lost ships and stranded

sea creatures lies scattered
across this desolate landscape.

- Is something like this
happening to Ordos?

- Is Ordos being buried by sand?

NARRATOR: A view from above shows
that Ordos is on the edge

of the Gobi Desert - the fastest
growing desert in the world.

- Between 1975 and 2017,

China's deserts expanded by an
astonishing 21,000 square miles.

- That's equivalent to more
than 10 million football fields!

- The catalyst for this is
deforestation.

All the upheaval and removal
of huge, ancient roots means the

soil isn't held together and is more
vulnerable to natural wind erosion.

- China has tried planting trees to
hold back the desert with a 'Green

Great Wall' but a fifth of the trees
planted so far have been planted

in places they don't naturally grow,
so they've already died.

- So is the fast-approaching desert
what forced people to flee the city?

NARRATOR: But a view from above
reveals massive reservoirs

supplying Ordos City.

- So while there's no question
the desert is expanding,

between the solid, modern buildings
and the giant reservoirs,

it's unlikely that people would
think the approaching desert

was a problem.

NARRATOR: So if people didn't flee

because they feared being
swallowed up by the desert then why?

What turned the massive
city of Ordos into a ghost town?

- It doesn't appear that the
city was abandoned

because of some kind of disaster
- man-made or natural.

- So where is everybody?

NARRATOR: Perhaps an answer to this
mystery lies more than 1000 km

away,
in another strange city in China.

- Oh that is bizarre!
I mean just look at that!

I mean it's a total
replica of an English town -

complete with pubs
and old-time English architecture.

- This just gets weirder and
weirder.

NARRATOR: This is Thames Town.

Created in 2006, the town was
meant to be home for the thousands

of people who live
and work at nearby universities.

- The city was expensive to build -
an estimated 635 million dollars.

And, expensive to live in.
Too much so, in fact.

- Thames Town was almost
as expensive to live in as London

itself, now that is saying
something!

- It's bonkers. Really!

I mean, how much money did
they think people who live

and work at Universities make?!
- In the end,

the government only managed to get
a few thousand people to live there.

NARRATOR: And Thamestown is not
the only time this happened -

another city
built to look like Paris, France,

also failed because no one could
afford to live there.

- So, is this what happened to
Ordos?

Is this massive city virtually empty

because no one has enough
money to survive there?

- I think we're getting warmer.

It cost well over a billion
dollars to build Ordos.

That meant developers needed high
real estate prices to get

a return on their investment.

- But, people didn't sign
up in droves the way the builders

thought they would.

- So, the developers were forced
to scale back plans for a population

of 1 million people but the actual
population only reached 100,000.

- And so you have what,
100,000 people being asked to make

up the shortfall so developers
could recoup their losses?

Not a great plan -

This drove the prices
of everything through the roof.

NARRATOR: And it
got worse - at one point,

property prices plunged so badly
that many developers went bankrupt.

- The Ordos project essentially
fell flat on its face.

They just couldn't get enough people
living there to sustain it.

- Looking over the city,

it's easy to see why the unfinished
houses and the vast, empty,

dusty blocks of a city with insanely
expensive real estate and

impossible cost of living, didn't
exactly attract droves of families.

- The one thing that did make
a difference was education.

Over the past several years China
has worked hard to make Ordos

more attractive.

The most successful of these efforts
was bringing in good schools.

- Education is highly
valued in China and the promise

of access to good schools has
started to lure families to Ordos.

- Slowly, the city is coming back
but it is still

nowhere near the epic metropolis it
was designed to be.

- Ordos is the ultimate lesson in
arrogance and greed in the desert.

NARRATOR: An epic urban folly,
revealed only by a view from above.

From a modern metropolis
dangerously close to the edge,

to an ancient walled city in the
clouds, to a mysterious desert

city losing the battle with nature
and an abandoned urban disaster.

Mysteries of these great
cities clearly

uncovered with a view from above.

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