Original subtitles

♪♪

Narrator: Next on "doomsday caught on camera"...

Man: Oh, my god!

What happens when a furious sea...

[ man screams ]

...Unleashes devastating force?

Lord, if you're gonna take me, make it quick.

Narrator: A river of scorching fire...

This is insane.

...Incinerates everything in its path.

Woman: Lava is a truly unstoppable force of nature.

Narrator: A mile-wide twister...

It's heading right for town.

...Barrels down on the innocent.

And that is scary. It's scary as hell.

[ woman screams ]

Narrator: This devious dust devil...

Ricky!

Narrator: ...Goes on a hellish rampage.

It didn't seem like he could survive such a thing.

And even more jaw-dropping weather phenomena...

[ screaming ]

...That will make you thank god

It didn't happen to you.

This was the scariest moment of my life.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: White sand, clear blue ocean,

And swaying palm trees.

A tropical island is a beautiful, luscious paradise.

But when a hurricane strikes,

It can turn into a death trap with no escape.

♪♪

When it's too late to get off the island,

Will you survive?

Man: Oh, god.

♪♪

August 31, 2019, the bahamas.

Late morning, powerful hurricane dorian

Has been brewing in the atlantic ocean

And has its sights set on the island nation.

On great abaco,

John slack and his wife tichka have been glued to the tv

To learn the danger that's in store.

They have just 24 hours before the hurricane hits.

Slack: We knew it was a bad hurricane at a category 5,

And that's as big as you get.

Our house is up in a small fishing village

Right smack on the sea of abaco,

Probably only 100 feet back from the water.

Narrator: Concerned for their safety,

The slacks seek refuge at their friend's house

A 1/4 of a mile away from the coast.

Our friend's home was concrete construction,

All hurricane doors and windows,

And we felt more comfortable

Going down to ride it out with him.

Narrator: Meanwhile, about 90 miles west

On grand bahama island, tim aylen and his family

Have also been monitoring the oncoming storm.

Unlike the slacks, the aylens live 6 miles inland,

So they have decided staying put in their house is the safest.

Aylen: Being so far from the coastline,

You're not concerned about flood waters and the ocean

Coming to your doorstep.

The unique challenge about being on an island

Or a chain of islands when a hurricane is approaching

Is that to evacuate is very difficult.

You kind of just have to hunker down

Because there's nowhere to go.

[ thunder cracks ]

Narrator: Early the next morning, the rain starts to fall,

And the first winds and waves crash onto great abaco island.

Slack: The wind is blowing hard, and the palm trees are blowing.

And then the rain is getting harder and harder,

And the visibility is getting less and less.

And then the palm trees are bending more and more.

Meanwhile, inside,

You start to get a little leak around the door.

"oh, we got a leak over here. You got a towel?"

And then it just got progressively worse.

Probably around 2:00 to 3:00 that afternoon,

The waves were 2 to 6 feet up against the door.

Narrator: Outside, conditions are dire as the winds gust

Over 200 miles an hour.

Delgado: He's in the eye wall,

The most intense part of the hurricane,

Where you get the heaviest rainfall, the strongest winds.

This was terrifying.

Abbott: Your senses get overwhelmed with all the noises.

Is that glass going to hold? Is the window going to break?

Narrator: And then...

Hurricane dorian is now inside the house.

♪♪

For john and tichka,

The situation goes from frightening to petrifying.

Slack: It was so totally unexpected.

The house started filling up with water.

♪♪

And waves are up on the windows, halfway up the wall.

I had never been through a hurricane this bad.

We all finally moved to the back bedroom,

And the king bed is floating.

It was a case of survival.

I remember my wife praying and telling me that,

"lord if you're gonna take me, just make it quick.

And if our time has come, just let it be quick."

♪♪

Narrator: As the slacks hunker down and pray

They can ride out the rest of the storm,

Over on grand bahama island, the aylen family

Is just beginning their battle with dorian,

But they have no idea just how much danger they're in.

Delgado: This hurricane sat for two days,

Just dropping several feet of rainfall.

Aylen: My son noticed water coming in through the garage,

So that was a huge shock.

Narrator: At first, the water is only a few inches deep.

Aylen: But then it just kept going, and then it was up to the knees,

And everyone's looking at me like,

"what do we do, daddy? What do we do?"

Abbott: How high is it going to go?

Is it going to go up to the ceiling level? You might drown.

Where are you going to go?

We tried opening the front door. Might have been a mistake.

But then the water started pouring in.

Woman: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. No, no, no. No.

We can't believe what's happening.

Narrator: Tim slams the door to keep more water from rushing in

As he desperately tries to figure out a way

To save himself and his family.

I would definitely say this was the scariest moment of my life.

Narrator: Water inside the house is now waist-high,

And tim decides it's time to evacuate.

We opened the window, and then everybody just climbed out.

Martin: It's a very difficult decision to leave your house

And to go into this place of raging water, running water,

Which has tremendous power.

It shows the fury of the storm, and it also shows

How strong these people really are.

Narrator: Once outside, all tim can see is raging water

And floating debris everywhere.

Aylen: You just panic a little bit,

And you're worried about everybody and everything.

Narrator: But there's no turning back.

They must get to higher ground.

Tim's daughter julia emerges from the house

With precious cargo.

Aylen: She's carrying a dog under each arm -- big dogs.

Her instinct was just to get them and get them out.

Orr-ewing: That's heroism right there.

That's bravery, facing that kind of water and destruction

And not only thinking of yourself.

Aylen: You're stepping over hedges and bumping into rocks,

Everything, as you're walking.

You can smell the gasoline.

Vagell: You could also have debris that could be sharp.

There could be pieces of metal.

Really, it's kind of like you're in a war zone underwater.

Narrator: Eventually, the aylens make their way to a shelter

Where they're able to safely ride out

The rest of the vicious storm.

Delgado: This is incredible.

I mean, these people could have been washed away.

Narrator: Back on abaco,

After battling the storm for nearly 30 hours,

John and tichka slack were also able to survive

Their harrowing ordeal,

Though, sadly, many in the bahamas weren't as lucky

With an estimated death toll in the hundreds.

Slack: The disaster we saw down there is just hard to describe.

It looked like a bomb had gone off -- an absolute bomb.

♪♪

I call it apocalyptic. Everybody would call it apocalyptic.

We were very grateful, actually, to come out unscathed.

I think as a family, we just drew on each other's strengths.

So I think that helped us a lot.

Slack: This was not a hurricane. This was a freak act of nature.

I feel blessed.

I feel blessed.

It's the closest thing I feel like I ever came to,

You know, possibly dying.

♪♪

Narrator: Coming up...

Man: This thing is moving so fast.

...Rivers of hot lava incinerate a town.

This is insane.

And... Woman: Oh, my god!

...A dust devil from the bowels of hell.

Ricky!

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Lava -- one of the hottest

And most dangerous natural substances on the planet.

Boiling-hot molten rock

From deep within the earth's underbelly.

Though it appears to move slowly, once unleashed,

The red river of hell destroys everything in its path.

Man: This thing is moving so fast.

Beware the fiery monster.

This is insane.

Doomsday has arrived.

♪♪

May 3, 2018.

The big island, hawaii.

Isaac krakauer lives on the east end of the island, near one

Of the most legendary volcanoes on the planet, kilauea.

My name is isaac krakauer.

I am a resident of the big island of hawaii.

Hawaii is really beautiful, and amazing beauty all around you.

But it's like you're on the edge of your seat most of the time.

We have earthquakes.

We have tsunamis. We have volcanoes.

Narrator: Kilauea is 280,000 years old

And is said by locals to be home to a goddess of fire named pele.

It's also a major tourist attraction

Because of the constant lava flow.

Phoenix: Kilauea volcano was, until 2018,

The most active volcano on planet earth.

It had been erupting continuously since the 1980s.

Narrator: Normally, the rivers of lava flow into the ocean,

And it's a wonder to behold.

But everything is about to change.

It all began when isaac felt the earth shake.

It started off with a bunch of sort of low tremors,

Earthquakes, which is not uncommon.

Then we started seeing cracking in the road.

And then we had a big earthquake.

And I was hearing explosions in the distance,

Which sounded relatively close,

Sounded like a jet engine was going off.

Narrator: But what isaac hears is no jet engine.

Pele has been awakened.

♪♪

Krakauer: It's red, it's fireworks,

It makes the sky glow.

It's absolutely insane.

♪♪

Narrator: But this time,

The lava is not heading for the ocean.

Instead, cracks have formed inland, and the hot,

Scorching rivers are flowing straight into the place

Isaac grew up, a densely populated neighborhood

Known as leilani estates.

Krakauer: There was a lot of people freaking out,

And nobody really knew what to do.

Everybody was very panicked.

Narrator: Residents are ordered to evacuate within 24 hours.

That's when isaac makes one of the hardest decisions

Of his life -- to protect himself

By staying away, or venture into the depths of hell

To help friends and family.

Krakauer: I had to help them move out.

And nobody else really wanted to go back there.

I felt that was sort of my purpose.

Narrator: But when he drives in, he's shocked by what he sees.

Rivers of lava creeping everywhere.

Krakauer: It's so hot. The heat is absolutely insane.

There is sulfur in the air. It burns your skin.

It burns your eyes, burns your face, everything.

Phoenix: Volcanic eruptions come with a lot of hazards.

You have the dangers of gases and ejected material

And the lava itself.

You can be really severely injured or killed.

Krakauer: You are trying to maintain your calm

As much as possible even though your heart rate

Is fluctuating up and down.

It was absolutely intense.

Narrator: Surrounded by unthinkable danger,

Isaac watches in utter horror

As the lava destroys everything in its path.

Krakauer: It was just awestruck, amazing,

Powerful force coming down through the jungle.

It's sort of like a slow-motion disaster.

Phoenix: Lava is a truly unstoppable force of nature.

It's about 2,000 degrees fahrenheit,

Which is incredibly hot.

It's four times hotter than the hottest setting on your oven.

Krakauer: Houses were just gone in a matter of five, 10 minutes.

And there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.

Abbott: You see the visuals there.

If you're a homeowner there,

This whole thing is a special kind of a disaster.

♪♪

Narrator: For the next month and a half,

Isaac returns almost daily

To help homeowners save their belongings.

But then one night

When he reaches the neighborhood, he sees...

Krakauer: There was two houses.

One of them was actually a friend of mine.

Narrator: It's the moment of truth.

Does isaac carry on or turn back?

Krakauer: Everything's on fire.

There's lava spewing, chunks of lava about that big.

They're like foam falling from the sky.

It was definitely like an end-of-the-world

Kind of feeling.

Martin: It's a vision of hell, basically.

I mean, who knows what hell is like?

But this is most people's idea of hell.

Narrator: And then...

Krakauer: The lava was coming through, and I was getting pinched

In between the jungle and the lava,

And there was a house there that was getting taken.

Narrator: Isaac and other residents are just moments away

From being boxed in.

Krakauer: I'm not totally sure who it was who yelled it,

But when they said we had a four minutes,

It meant that the lava was moving so fast

That if you didn't get out of there within that time frame,

You would be trapped.

Narrator: Facing certain death,

Isaac has no choice but to flee and pray he survives.

Krakauer: We were definitely worried about getting cut off.

My heart was pounding.

♪♪

Narrator: Somehow, isaac and the others

Are able to escape with their lives.

Krakauer: I've never seen anything like it.

Multiple friends and close relatives lost houses,

Lost their land, almost everything entirely.

Phoenix: These folks were decimated.

It's just really fortunate that no people died.

Krakauer: I'm really blessed to be able to come out of this.

We got super lucky.

Living in hawaii, you know, things that are

Really, really violent, like, you cannot control them.

It's pretty terrifying.

♪♪

Narrator: Coming up...

A terrorizing twister on a mission.

And... Man: Steve, watch out!

...Who knew ice could be this deadly?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: A tornado is one of mother nature's

Most mysterious and terrifying phenomena.

Woman: Oh, my god! Oh, my god!

And while most people would never dare get close to one...

Man: That's it.

...A storm chaser thrives on the thrill of the chase.

What a tornado! My god!

But be not mistaken -- one wrong move

Can mean the difference between life...

Oh, [bleep], we're too close. Got to run.

...Or death.

♪♪

April 29, 2017.

Canton, texas, just 50 miles east of dallas.

Hank schyma is gearing up for a full day of chasing tornadoes.

I've been storm chasing in some way or form

Pretty much my whole life.

That day, we knew there was going to be some tornadoes

Somewhere on this very large threat area.

I chose the area around canton, texas,

And one after another, tornadoes were coming.

Narrator: A single tornado is treacherous enough,

But multiple twisters are the ultimate nightmare.

Delgado: This was the perfect recipe.

We had a stationary front in place,

Deep tropical moisture.

And this allowed for all of these tornadoes to pop up.

Schyma: These tornadoes were not small.

These were monster -- mile-and-a-half-wide tornadoes.

This is extremely dangerous.

And no matter how experienced you are,

If anything goes wrong, you're dead.

And that is scary. It's scary as hell.

Narrator: By late afternoon,

Hank has already witnessed several intense tornadoes

When suddenly, he notices one of the most violent twisters

He's ever seen approaching from the south.

Schyma: Just got a glimpse of it.

You can hardly even tell it's a tornado.

Just from horizon to horizon, you see this wedged cloud

Just going across the sky.

Let's go get it.

♪♪

I'm trying to get close to it,

But there's just trees in my way.

The fact that you can't even see it

And it's that close is terrifying.

Vagell: It's a very fine line.

When you're storm chasing, your adrenaline's running.

You can hear the terror in hank's voice.

"am I too close? Have I misjudged this?"

Narrator: And then the situation takes a horrifying turn.

I look up and I just see the clouds just cranking above me,

And I realize, "oh, man, I'm too close."

I thought for sure this one

Was going to be just the worst case scenario.

Narrator: In order to avoid getting swallowed up by the twister,

Hank slams on the brakes

And quickly turns his truck in the opposite direction.

Schyma: It's coming up fast.

Oh, [bleep].

Narrator: Having possibly just cheated death,

He now has a front-row seat to the devastation.

Dude, you guys...

Better run.

It's like that horror film, you can see

Just this monster just start crawling all over the trees.

This thing was just a big, ugly vacuum cleaner, dark color,

Just destroying everything in its path.

Narrator: Suddenly, hank makes a startling realization.

The tornado has veered

And is headed straight for the town of canton, texas.

3,500 people are about to face their maker.

♪♪

This is something that can totally obliterate

And wipe your town off of the map.

Schyma: It was extremely apocalyptic.

It was extremely doomsday, end-of-the-world vibe

That you get, just the motion of the cloud.

It doesn't look real.

Watching this footage, this seems like the end,

The absolute last page of humanity.

The gods have sent down their cleaning crew

To wipe mankind off the face of the planet.

Narrator: Hank now has a choice --

Drive away or head for the devastation.

Schyma: Oh, my god.

There's an 18-wheeler rig on its side,

Houses are destroyed, there's power lines everywhere,

The air smells like gas.

My worst fear is somebody's buried and trapped.

And so I'm going to just see if I can find anybody.

You got to help people. You just got to do it.

At our best, humans think beyond themselves

And think in terms of the well-being of others.

And with hank, what we get is someone at their best,

Looking out for someone else despite the risk involved.

Schyma: All the vehicles were empty,

All the houses were empty.

As I'm walking back, I see a woman standing up in the rubble.

And then I saw that she was bleeding.

Narrator: That woman, vicky,

Is badly injured with a gash to her head

And is in shock at what has just happened.

Hank immediately helps vicky into his car

And rushes her to the hospital.

Schyma: I've got a woman. I'm taking her to the hospital.

How you doing back there? Vicky: I'm good.

She says she's good.

Trying to keep her calm, and inside, I'm terrified,

I'm thinking, "oh, my gosh, what's going to happen?"

Narrator: But as they approach the hospital,

Vicky seems just as concerned for hank.

Martin: I thought it was a beautiful prayer,

And I thought it showed that even in her toughest moment,

She's praying for someone else.

She's trying to pray for someone who helps her.

Narrator: Vicky recovered from her injuries,

And she and hank remained friends.

And the people of canton, texas, were insanely lucky

As the tornado veered away from the center of town

At the very last second.

But for hank, memories of that near-disastrous day

Still linger.

Schyma: I pass through canton a lot on my way to storm chasing.

There's still those ghostly reminders.

For the most part, I'm trying to condition myself

To just back off a little bit.

I don't need to be that close.

Dude, you guys...

Better run.

Narrator: Coming up... Woman: Oh, my god!

...A dust devil unleashes its raw fury.

[ screams ]

And massive boulders barrel down a mountain.

[ screaming ]

Can anyone survive?

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Picture this.

You're outside. It's a clear, sunny day.

The weather is calm.

Then out of nowhere, a towering twister of dust appears

And is heading right for you.

[ screaming ]

You are now in the presence of a dust devil.

♪♪

So mysterious, so dangerous, it may as well have been created

By the devil himself.

[ screaming ]

♪♪

January 2, 2019.

Manilla, australia.

Leanne and rick brezina

Are on a two-week paragliding trip

In the southeastern part of the country.

We were always into all kinds of adventure sports,

Outdoor sports.

Leanne: When you're flying, you just get

A whole new perspective of the world.

And feel the wind.

You have a 360-degree view in every direction.

It feels kind of like a dream.

This was, I think, like, the seventh day

In a row that we had been flying.

There was nothing special about this day whatsoever.

The winds were light,

The sky was clear, nothing was in the forecast.

Around 11:00 a.M., rick is strapped into his glider,

Getting ready to launch,

While leanne is filming from a short distance away

When suddenly, a violent gust of wind sweeps him off the ground.

It's a dust devil.

[ leanne screaming ]

Leanne watches helplessly.

I felt myself dragged to the side very suddenly,

As if I had been, like, hit by a truck or something.

The g-forces were so extreme that I had gone basically

270 degrees around in a circle,

And I was facing out from the mountain.

It happened so quickly. It was pretty frightening.

I thought for a second, like,

"I'm not sure how I'm going to get out of this."

Delgado: A dust devil develops when you have intense heating

And then you get the rising air.

It's very similar to a tornado

In the fact that it's a vertically stacked,

Rotating column of air, but unlike a tornado,

This is something that happens on a perfectly clear day.

Vagell: They can happen anywhere that's really -- that's hot

And has relatively flat, dry ground.

Leanne: Oh, my god!

They can be scary because they could have winds

That could potentially reach 80 to 100 miles per hour.

Narrator: Leanne is in utter shock.

I just thought, like, "oh, my gosh.

Like, he's gonna hit the ground or he's gonna hit a tree."

I just thought, like, "I hope he doesn't die."

Martin: It must have been terrifying to see

Someone you love thrown about like that, like a rag doll.

There's a sense of loss of power, loss of control

On a day that was supposed to be a lot of fun

And turns out to be terrifying.

Narrator: Rick knows he is facing life or death

And must use all his skill and experience to survive.

[ leanne screams ]

I was so focused on just what I had to do.

I thought, "the only priority right now

Is to try to keep the glider open."

Leanne: My god!

Because that's the only safety that you have.

If the glider closes, you're gonna drop to the ground.

Narrator: As rick struggles to control his glider,

The dust devil suddenly turns its attention

To its next victim, leanne.

I thought it was gonna be a life-and-death event.

But leanne's not the only one in danger.

Another guy, an older gentleman, is about to be pulled off.

So it stopped being about rick

And it started to be about the next guy.

I just dove on it, onto his glider

To try and hold it down so he wouldn't get picked up.

Delgado: Rick's wife was really kind of the hero of the moment

Because she had the wits to know that -- seeing this other guy

With the paragliding equipment on, that

He could have been whipped up just like her husband.

If she didn't do what she had,

We're not sure whether he was holding on to the glider or not.

Who knows what might have happened?

The name dust devil points to something,

A figure that is prominent within scripture.

This demonic force -- it's unpredictable,

It's malicious, it whirls around,

And there's no way of knowing when it will stop.

Narrator: Just as fast as leanne's harrowing ordeal began,

The dust settles.

But she's still fretting about whether rick has survived.

I was just hysterical,

Just really concerned about whether he was okay or not.

Leanne: Oh!

No!

It didn't seem like he could survive such a thing.

Oh, [bleep].

Narrator: Miraculously, rick escapes without injury.

Let there be no mistake. I was very, very, very lucky.

Though leanne is anxious to see him safe on land,

Rick surprisingly has other plans.

If I land now, I'm just going to be thinking

And replaying the whole thing in my head all day.

And I thought to myself, "if I stay in the air,

I'm going to be focusing on what I have to do.

And when I finally land,

I will have forgotten half of the drama."

In fact, despite his unexpected brush with death,

Rick had an epic day in the skies.

I actually flew 192 kilometers.

I think it was the second-best day of the whole trip.

But the havoc this dust devil caused is one adventure

This couple will never forget.

[ leanne screams ]

I was controlling the glider through the thing,

But let there be no mistake,

There was a huge amount of luck involved.

You know, the launch time is a dangerous time.

I should have been holding his glider.

So it's better to be safe and to help each other.

Leanne: No!

It ranks up there as one of the scariest moments of my life.

[ screams ]

No!

♪♪

Narrator: Coming up...

A violent tsunami of ice threatens to crush everything.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: We've all seen the powerful images

Of massive glaciers melting

And boulders of ice crashing into the sea

From greenland to iceland to antarctica.

Now imagine seeing a similar sight traveling across a lake.

Man: Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Behold the ice tsunami.

♪♪

When it's headed your way...

Okay.

...Watch out.

Man: Back up, back up! Steve, steve, look out!

♪♪

♪♪

February 24, 2019

On lake erie, one of the great lakes

That separates the united states and canada.

In the dead of winter,

Temperatures on the lake can plummet to -40 degrees,

Causing giant sheets of ice to form.

But today is special.

In addition to the thick ice,

The area is expecting hurricane-force winds

That will cause an extreme weather phenomenon

Known as an ice shelf.

I'm george kourounis, I'm a professional explorer

That documents extreme forces of nature.

I love the unpredictability because you never know

What you're gonna experience.

I was looking at the forecast and noticed that there was gonna

Be very strong winds coming across lake erie,

Blowing over top of all the floating ice that was out there.

Narrator: And so george and his colleague steve head to the lake

To capture footage of this exciting event firsthand.

Kourounis: The wind was blowing along the full length of lake erie.

The winds were up around hurricane-force gusts.

I had never seen lake erie move like this before.

Narrator: George and steve find a park along the lake

To set up their cameras,

As they've done many times before,

But this time is different.

As soon as we got to the park, there were mountains of ice.

♪♪

Everywhere you looked, it just took on this bizarre,

Otherworldly feel.

♪♪

Narrator: Instantly, the two men are confronted

With the extreme elements.

Getting the wind in your face.

You're getting that tremendous wind chill.

Narrator: And as the incredible scene unfolds before them,

They are humbled by the power of mother nature.

It's a completely surreal situation.

It felt like it was something out of an

Early 1990s disaster movie.

I've been to the arctic. I've been to antarctica.

I've seen lots of ice,

But I've never seen ice behave like this before.

Kourounis: Right there. Uh-oh.

Narrator: The ice chunks are now moving with tremendous speed.

And even the one wrong move could spell disaster.

The men inch towards the water.

Kourounis: We're trying to get a little bit closer,

Trying to see what's going on.

So we literally couldn't have gotten any closer to the ice.

These things were moving pretty fast.

And as the ice was coming ashore,

It was acting in some really unpredictable manner.

It wasn't subtle or gradual at all.

It was violent.

Delgado: When you see this wall of ice coming towards you,

It's almost like an avalanche.

It's just incredible.

How much higher is it going to go?

How much bigger are the pieces is going to be?

Vagell: An ice shelf,

Which is sometimes referred to as an ice tsunami,

Usually happens in mid-to-late winter or early spring

When ice begins to melt and break down,

And if there's enough wind, the ice keeps piling up.

It's fascinating,

But at the same time, it can also be destructive.

Kourounis: Some of these ice chunks were the size of

Your coffee table or larger, the size of a couch.

And we're not talking about soft cushions.

Right there.

1,000 cubic feet can weigh over 50,000 pounds or 25 tons,

So basically, these chunks of ice --

They could weigh more than a car.

The folks in this footage are definitely in danger...

Right there.

...Because there's a very real possibility

They could be severely injured or killed.

Steve, watch out, watch out.

Narrator: Suddenly, the men learn

Just how life-threatening their situation really is.

Steve, watch out, watch out.

♪♪

Kourounis: The next thing I know,

There's huge chunks of ice

Where we had been standing only mere seconds previous.

Yeah. Got another one coming now.

Narrator: But that was just a warning.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.

Steve behind the camera to georgia's left

Is right in the line of fire, and he doesn't even know it.

Kourounis: I was very concerned for him

Because he was in between me and the ice.

Back up.

I thought he was in danger, and I wanted to make sure

That he was able to get out of the way in time.

Back up, back up! Steve, steve, look out!

♪♪

Whoa!

Narrator: Miraculously, thanks to george,

Steve is able to avoid getting pummeled by the ice,

Though george doesn't see himself as the hero.

I don't feel that I saved anyone that day at all.

It was just a matter of looking out for your teammates.

Narrator: Still, both men know this could have been the end.

Back up, back up! Steve, steve, look out!

Kourounis: It would have absolutely been game over

If one of these blocks of ice

Had hit one of us directly in the head or chest.

Steve, watch out, watch out.

It's really easy to forget how powerful nature is

And how small we can be next to a big storm or an earthquake

Or any dramatic force of nature that we call a disaster.

Steve, watch out, watch out!

There's no photo, there's no piece of video worth dying for.

Back up! Back up!

Back up, back up! Steve, steve, look out!

♪♪

Narrator: Coming up, a vicious rockslide...

[ screaming ]

...Wreaks havoc on the innocent.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: A landslide is one of planet earth's

Ugliest calamities.

Thousands of pounds of dirt, rock, and debris

Cascading downhill...

[ screaming ]

...Leading to nothing but sheer devastation.

It's a vicious monster that can strike anytime, anywhere,

When you least expect it.

Is there any escape, or will this be...

[ screaming ]

...The end?

♪♪

November 4, 2018.

Benguet in the philippines.

It's a quiet autumn afternoon in the cordillera mountains

On the filipino island of luzon, north of manila.

On a bus, passengers are making their way around a bend

When the driver senses trouble up ahead.

♪♪

One passenger begins to film

As a few rocks and boulders careen down.

♪♪

And then...

Landslide.

♪♪

Delgado: You're on this bus

And you're enjoying the scenery of the mountain,

And then all of a sudden, the rocks start

To fall in front of you, and they're falling,

They're falling faster and they're getting louder.

Can you imagine how terrifying

That must have been to be on that bus?

What that really is, is when a piece of land moves

As a result of weight or soils becoming saturated by water.

Each one of those rocks that falls

Removes support for other rocks.

Vagell: It's like a ripple effect.

Next thing you know, there's this whole wall of rocks

And dirt and debris and trees just sliding down a hill.

It's really scary how it happens.

Narrator: With no time to back up, the bus is trapped.

♪♪

Will the passengers be crushed...

Or buried alive?

♪♪

[ screaming ]

A massive boulder has just pelted the top of the bus.

♪♪

The bus begins to back up

As the passengers enter full panic mode.

[ screaming ]

Abbott: Those individual rocks weigh several tons each.

Nobody would have a chance of surviving

Had you been hit by that.

They're massive boulders, but any rock that's moving

At a good amount of speed could really hurt you.

It's definitely scary.

[ screaming ]

♪♪

Narrator: As horrifying as it is,

At least the travelers were protected inside the bus.

But look again at the moments before disaster struck.

There's a man standing right in front of the mayhem.

Delgado: Look at this guy on the side of the road.

He's filming this rockslide.

Hello. This is dangerous. Get out of the way.

The instinct might be to get your camera out

Or maybe start filming it, but it only takes a few seconds

For that initial crumbling of rocks and pebbles

To escalate into this huge rockslide,

So you don't want to be anywhere near that.

♪♪

Narrator: Luckily, no one was injured,

But the survivors on that bus

Are sure to never forget this harrowing event.

The trauma after this sort of experience is real.

I'm sure many of the people on that bus will have felt,

"wow, we survived this, and god was with us."

♪♪

Abbott: That was a fatal encounter avoided.

That would have been a truly messy event

Had that bus been caught up in that avalanche.

Mother nature at work. She can really be overpowering at times.

[ screaming ]

So, it's doomsday.

What would you do if you were caught

In one of the most devastating hurricanes ever,

Surrounded by gushing rivers of molten lava...

This is insane.

...Trapped in the sinister path of a mile-wide twister...

Oh, my god!

...Or flung through the air by a vicious dust devil?

Oh, my god!

Just hope and pray you live to tell about it.

Oh, god.

♪♪

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