Original subtitles

♪♪

NARRATOR: Next on "Doomsday Caught On Camera,"

an explosion of ice...

creates a tsunami of terror.

It was like everything was in slow motion.

NARRATOR: The earth rumbles to its core...

[ People screaming ]

...causing mass hysteria.

Buildings collapsed.

We were running.

It was like a nightmare.

NARRATOR: What happens when a roaring flood...

WOMAN: It's at the window!

NARRATOR: ...ambushes an innocent family?

WOMAN: Quickly!

ABBOTT: Before long, it's gonna be inside the house.

NARRATOR: A ruthless twister...

WELLS: Oh, my God!

I thought I was gonna die.

NARRATOR: ...ravages a community.

MARK: Our house is freaking destroyed.

NARRATOR: And even more jaw-dropping weather phenomena

that will make you thank God...

HOLLIE: Am I gonna die on my vacation?

NARRATOR: ...it didn't happen to you.

MARK: Oh, my God, the neighbors' houses are gone.

WELLS: Oh, my God!

♪♪

♪♪

NARRATOR: Glaciers, colossal masses of ice

that form over hundreds of years,

where fallen snow compresses and transforms

into giant, slow-moving beasts.

While most glaciers occupy Antarctica and Greenland,

they can actually be found on nearly every continent.

And people from all over

flock to get a glimpse of these natural wonders.

But when these monsters begin to crack

and pieces plunge into the waters below,

you better make sure you're nowhere in sight.

HOOPER: Oh, my! Holy [bleep]

NARRATOR: August 10, 2019,

Chugach National Forest, Alaska.

This remote tourist destination is home to scenic hiking trails,

rustic campsites,

and its centerpiece, Spencer Glacier,

a magnificent 3,500-foot-high marvel

situated along pristine royal blue water.

Visiting the glacier is Andrew Hooper

and his friend Josh,

both of whom are touring the Alaskan frontier

with their families.

Spencer Glacier, we researched that,

found out the you can get there by train.

It's basically in the middle of nowhere.

Train comes by there once a day.

Josh and I decided that we wanted to go kayak

that glacial pool at the end of the glacier.

NARRATOR: Andrew and Josh say goodbye to their wives and kids

and take the half-hour train ride

into the isolated wilderness.

They arrive at the Spencer Glacier Whistle Stop

to begin their journey.

HOOPER: We hiked in probably about a mile, mile and a half,

set up our tents.

You can actually stay there overnight,

which you have to do because of the train.

And then decided it was time to get in the kayaks.

And start tootling around the area.

♪♪

We had to paddle almost a mile, mile and a half

to actually get to the glacier.

We didn't realize it was that far from shore.

And then once you get there,

it's obviously a lot larger than you expected.

It was massive.

NARRATOR: The guys paddle around the icy behemoth,

taking in all of its beauty,

when suddenly they hear what sounds like crackling ice.

You could hear the cracks.

It sound like dropping a rock down in a well.

Then sounded more like a shotgun blast.

[ Ice cracking ]

But you don't really know what's happening

just because you're still getting the echo

from the mountains on all sides.

NARRATOR: Andrew and Josh don't know it,

but Spencer Glacier is in the middle

of a natural process called calving.

PHOENIX: That means the glacier is breaking,

so whether it's melting

or whether there's a pressure being exerted on it, it splits.

Pieces of glaciers that have calved

can be the size of several city blocks.

You've basically got a very large chunk

of something that is extremely solid and mobile.

So it's definitely a moving hazard.

♪♪

HOOPER: Every five minutes, you can hear it cracking.

It's dropped a couple pieces of ice.

The cracks were very small...

Lunch boxes, that type of stuff, falling off.

There's a few more little pieces.

Then the larger one,

probably about the size of a Volkswagen Bug, fell off.

♪♪

Wasn't that the one we wanted to go under?

We were ignorant to what could happen, the dangers.

Yes!

We're running on adrenaline.

It was like, "Oh, this is cool as cool could be."

This is pretty frickin' cool.

NARRATOR: At first, Andrew and Josh are relaxed

and enjoying the show,

but as more ice begins to fall and at a faster pace,

an eerie feeling washes over the two friends.

HOOPER: Man, when that whole thing goes...

NARRATOR: Suddenly...

♪♪

It was like everything was in slow motion.

You couldn't do anything. It was too late to paddle away.

Things were traveling at high speeds.

I dropped the camera and shielded myself.

And I had put my hand over my face

and kind of crouched down.

But it was definitely like, "This is the end for us."

♪♪

Oh, my!

NARRATOR: Fearing for their lives,

the guys furiously begin to paddle.

It was the fight-or-flight type thing,

and I was going as fast as I could to get away.

Holy [bleep]

Josh was a little bit behind me.

My left hand's going numb because, you know, it got hit.

I'm looking down in my kayak,

and I've got two inches of water in there.

We were both scared, afraid.

You know, all the emotions at one point in time

to get to a safe distance away from the glacier.

Oh, my God!

[ Rumbling ]

Josh was to my left, and I took the majority of the water.

I still had my regular hiking pants on

that weren't waterproof.

I had on a regular jacket that also wasn't waterproof.

It was very cold really quick.

DELGADO: Easy to get knocked out or you're tipped over.

This is a glacier.

So that means that the water is cold.

How about hypothermia,

in addition just to being scared out of your pants?

ABBOTT: And you're looking at hunks of ice

that weigh hundreds, even a few thousand pounds.

A few thousand pounds of ice fall on you, you're dead.

♪♪

HOOPER: I got hit right below my left breast,

and my hand got hit, as well, and it was bleeding.

And you're bleeding in the middle of nowhere

with a train that comes once a day.

It's like, "What's gonna happen?"

Everything was still moving around.

There were still additional pops.

Was that the calm before the storm,

or was that the big punch?

NARRATOR: Incredibly, both Andrew and Josh

manage to escape the icy grip of the crumbling glacier.

Once we got a little bit away, the waves were calm,

and we sat there for probably 5 to 10 minutes

and just caught our breath, you know, assessed the situation.

So we're still just in...

in awe.

Very, very blessed to have seen it and survived.

We were thinking our lucky stars and God

for having to get through that.

Un-[bleep]-real.

NARRATOR: The men eventually make it back to dry land,

where they recover alongside a roaring campfire,

and take the train home the next morning.

But the magnitude of this near-fatal catastrophe

has them severely shaken.

HOOPER: We got very lucky.

There were pieces the size of baseballs

that were just skipping off the water right next to us,

shards of ice that have sharp edges.

It could have been a lot worse.

The amount of power that was in the glacier,

and to say that we walked away from it was absolutely amazing.

♪♪

Holy [bleep]

NARRATOR: Coming up, a twisted vortex of chaos...

...comes knocking at the front door.

And an entire country is shaken to its core.

[ People screaming ]

♪♪

NARRATOR: A tornado is a creation of pure evil.

Hot and cold air collide in the sky.

An updraft of rotating winds begins to churn,

and a funnel cloud grows and descends upon the earth...

engulfing everything in its dreadful path.

And if you're in the way...

...pray it doesn't take you with it.

November 17, 2013, Washington, Illinois.

Josie Wells and her father, Mark,

are at home enjoying a lazy Sunday.

My sisters and my mom were out of town.

I was actually sleeping in late that day.

NARRATOR: But this isn't any Sunday,

because a massive tornado outbreak

is blasting through America's heartland.

WELLS: I got, like, an alert on my phone

saying "tornado warning."

My dad was like, "You should come downstairs."

I was already watching TV.

And then he had the news on.

The people went off air.

And that's when I knew something was getting, like, serious.

NARRATOR: As the swirling terror closes in on their town,

Josie and her father venture outside

to try and catch a glimpse.

WELLS: My dad's always been, like, a thrill seeker,

wanting to, like, see the natural disasters,

follow tornadoes.

In his brain, I think he was just thinking, like,

"Oh, I want to get this on video.

This is so cool."

I was in shock.

This is, like, cool but scary at the same time.

Fear started to shake in

when he realized there was debris

and it was coming towards us.

NARRATOR: Without hesitation, Josie and her dad run downstairs

to a shelter designed specifically

for this frightening situation,

and they lock themselves inside.

A tornado shelter's just this big cement hallway.

It goes really far back into the structure of the home.

There's no electricity. It's literally like a dark hole.

And I just went straight to the tornado shelter,

and I was like, "Dad, get in here,"

'cause I knew it was getting bad.

There was no other place for us to go.

My dad doesn't really ever get scared,

but I felt his fear.

When he came in, he said, "It's gonna get bad."

I was kind of, like, cradled down holding the dog,

and then he was, like, over me,

and we just kind of, like, huddled together.

The terror of the unknown,

and you don't know if you're gonna make it

from one moment to the next.

NARRATOR: Within moments,

they hear the tornado rapidly approaching above them.

[ Rumbling ]

What sounds like a power drill on overdrive

brutally assaults their senses.

The sound, it makes you cringe a little bit.

You're like, "What is that?"

[ Buzzing ] [ Crying ]

I was afraid, and I heard sounds

that I've never in my life heard of.

I would relate it to a freight train.

NARRATOR: And then that train

barrels straight through the property,

swallowing up everything in sight

while Josie and her dad brace themselves underground.

Death definitely went through my mind in that moment.

[ Clattering, banging ]

[ Screaming ]

I blacked out, like, what was going on.

[ Crying ]

[ Banging, crashing ]

MARK: Oh!

I thought I was gonna die.

[ Banging, crashing ] [ Screams ]

NARRATOR: After roughly half a minute of raucous mayhem,

the sounds of destruction stop.

The tornado appears to have passed.

Mark walks up from the shelter

and stumbles toward the living room to assess the damage.

But he is not prepared for what he's about to see.

WELLS: And to hear, like, the sadness in my dad's voice,

that was heartbreaking to me.

MARK: Oh!

This tornado with wind speeds up to 180 miles an hour,

this is the kind of a thing

that homes just are not designed to stand up to.

I didn't know what we were supposed to do next

if our whole house is gone.

I didn't know where we were supposed to go that was safe.

MARTIN: I really found this very, very sad to watch.

I really felt this family's pain as they were going through it.

I know that my dad loved that house, and he built it,

and we had so many memories there.

So it was the most devastating time of my life.

NARRATOR: As he tries to process the loss of his home,

Mark makes another shocking discovery.

I remember this happening, and this was devastating.

You're never prepared for when you actually walk out

and you see the damage firsthand.

[ Wells sobbing ]

WELLS: There was no homes in sight.

So many of the people I loved,

their house got hit by a tornado, as well, not just ours.

Just did not feel like real life.

It was, like, something, like,

out of the zombie apocalypse or something.

[ Sobbing ]

When I looked at that, I thought people were dead.

VAGELL: Having the storm shelter,

that's probably the only reason why they really survived this.

But even though the storm's over,

there's still danger there that lurks.

NARRATOR: Now fearing what's left of their house

will collapse,

Mark frantically calls for his daughter.

Josie and Mark eventually get to safety.

And then the news of the devastation...

The EF4-rated tornado not only crushed their home,

but decimated hundreds of other houses in that community,

tragically claiming one life.

I don't know why everybody feels so, like, sad for me.

I'm just lucky to be alive.

After that, I just felt grateful to be alive and for life.

Expressions of gratitude in those situations

are really very common.

They're also very beautiful.

WELLS: Houses and places can be rebuilt.

Some of the items that I lost, they were just items.

They didn't fulfill my happiness.

The people around me did.

The relationships and the people are what matter the most.

NARRATOR: Coming up... SHERMER: Oh, my God!

...vicious floodwaters...

...turn a home into a prison.

And a road trip...

[ All screaming ]

...filled with terror.

HOLLIE: I hope we don't die, guys.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Mother Nature's mayhem knows no bounds.

And one of her deadliest acts is a flash flood.

One minute everything is calm, and the next absolute chaos.

Beware the horror, because these floods can hit unexpectedly

and without mercy...

...trapping you...

...with no escape.

SHERMER: Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

NARRATOR: June 9, 2019, Dallas, Texas.

On this summer weekend,

the Shermer family is spending some quality time together,

hanging out at home.

SHERMER: My name is Danielle Shermer,

and I live with my husband and my two sons and my mom.

We live in Lake Highlands, Dallas, Texas.

We live on a small trickling creek

that winds around our house.

We were just watching soccer, having our coffee.

I saw a friend of mine on Instagram.

She talked about some crazy storm

that had just come through that looked pretty bad,

but especially in the summer in Texas, it's pretty dry.

We don't have big storms normally in the summer.

So I just kind of went on with my morning.

NARRATOR: Then the weather takes a sudden turn.

SHERMER: I remember looking out

and noticing that it was getting dark quickly.

The winds picked up, and then it just started raining.

It was hard, and it was a lot all at once.

[ Thunder rumbling ]

The electricity went out.

We heard the trees starting to fall on the house,

and I thought for sure it was a tornado.

NARRATOR: But this is no tornado.

A rumbling sound catches Danielle's ear.

And suddenly...

water everywhere.

It's the creek, which has now exploded

into an extreme storm surge.

The power of the water was shocking.

It was a raging river.

It was rushing so fast.

That's the crazy moment where you're like,

"Is this really even happening?"

MARTIN: Living by this beautiful creek

that suddenly turns deadly,

there's a sense almost of betrayal.

This thing that we love,

which was so calm and little and pretty,

this thing is now going to destroy us.

SHERMER: Every time I had looked out the window,

I was worried that a large log or, like, a piece of debris

could hit our window and break it

and the water would just rush in.

NARRATOR: For the next 20 minutes,

the terrifying flash flood continues to intensify.

SHERMER: It just kept getting higher and higher,

and it was still raining, and I didn't understand,

like, when it would end or how it would end.

♪♪

DELGADO: This is not one of those slow-moving events.

This is one where the rainfall rate

was too fast for the ground to absorb.

Basically, their house, it turned into an island.

It was really difficult

to try and make a decision on what to do.

We just... We felt really stuck.

The waves start hitting into the windowpane,

almost as if it's knocking, saying, "Can I come in?

Oh, I don't need your permission.

I'm coming in."

A foot deep of water's carrying 500 pounds of lateral force.

It's climbing even higher.

Before long, it's gonna break through the glass doors.

It's gonna be inside the house.

And when that safe zone is compromised,

there's nowhere to run.

♪♪

NARRATOR: As the water outside keeps rising,

Danielle and her family

are essentially prisoners inside their own home.

SHERMER: The way that our house is situated on the creek,

it wraps around the house.

So as we realize that waters were coming down

on all sides of the house, we just felt so trapped.

It was really a suffocating feeling

and a really helpless feeling.

A complete nightmare.

NARRATOR: A nightmare they can't escape.

And so the kids are told to take shelter on the second floor.

Even if you've made it to the safety

of a high point in your house,

there's still the possibility

that the flood could sweep your house off of its foundation

and actually move the entire structure.

NARRATOR: Danielle watches helplessly

as the floodwaters continue to attack her home.

And then...

the brutal surge of water begins to recede.

As quickly as it came up,

that's as quickly as the water went down.

It was a huge relief that it crested where it did

because if it had gotten much higher,

I don't think the windows would have held.

NARRATOR: Danielle braces herself for the damage.

I remember going out and just being like,

"What just happened?"

NARRATOR: And it's substantial.

But thankfully, she and her family survive the ordeal.

Still, they will never forget the mighty forces of nature

that nearly washed their home away.

It was super emotional. It was so shocking.

And I felt very grateful,

because I feel like it could have been a million times worse.

And I'm reminded of that all the time.

DELGADO: They're all lucky to be alive.

Imagine if they just had a ranch house

and they only had one level.

They might have not been here to even tell us their story.

SHERMER: It was one of the craziest days of my life,

and I just never thought that something like that

could ever happen to me or my family.

And I think the biggest takeaway is it can happen to you,

and you may not expect it,

but just never take the weather for granted.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Coming up, the earth rumbles,

and a nation runs for cover.

And a merciless mudslide consumes all.

♪♪

♪♪

NARRATOR: It strikes without warning,

shattering buildings, mangling roadways...

even leveling entire cities,

shaking the ground with such violence,

you'd think the world was imploding.

Oh, you can try to prepare.

[ Rumbling ]

But in the end, Mother Nature always holds the upper hand,

because nothing can stop an earthquake.

April 25, 2015, Pokhara, Nepal.

Pokhara is the country's second-largest city,

about 120 miles west of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

And it's home to 23-year-old Shristi Mainali,

who was about to graduate

from the Central Institute of Science and Technology.

I was studying bachelor's in public health.

So in our study during the last semesters,

we are sent in the community to work there for one month.

So I was sent to work

in the district public health office of Pokhara.

NARRATOR: After an eight-hour bus ride,

Shristi settles in at a local youth hostel,

where she and some classmates decide to blow off some steam.

MAINALI: In our group, we were nine girls.

We had planned to go for a movie that Saturday

because from Sunday, we had to work a lot.

NARRATOR: It's just before noon, and the movie is set to begin.

But out of nowhere,

an unusual rumbling noise fills the theater.

MAINALI: We thought that it was like generator

or something like that.

Maybe the movie hall, they started the generators.

It makes certain sound like [Imitates rumbling]

NARRATOR: But it's clear this is no generator.

The chairs and all in the movie hall were shaking.

People started to shout that, "Earthquake, earthquake,"

and everyone started to run out of the theater.

Just imagine the chaos there.

It was literally shaking.

The building was shaking a lot.

There was the sound of the earthquake,

of the earth shaking.

NARRATOR: That's because the epicenter of the quake

is less than 80 miles away from Shristi and her friends.

And it isn't just shaking Pokhara.

The massive 7.8-magnitude monster

is sending shock waves

throughout the entire country of Nepal.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

♪♪

[ Rumbling ]

[ Glass breaking ]

[ People screaming ]

DELGADO: Nepal is no stranger when it comes to earthquakes.

What made this one so much worse

was this one was only about 34 kilometers deep,

very close to the earth's surface, and it was violent.

So that's why the damage there was just so devastating.

NARRATOR: Outside the movie theater in Pokhara,

Shristi and her friends

are immediately thrust into the mayhem.

[ People screaming ]

♪♪

And then we realized that, okay,

this was like of high magnitude of earthquake.

It was scary because when everyone around starts to panic

and starts to shout, then you get more scared.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

There's that feeling of doom, of panic.

You don't know what's coming next.

You don't know where to go, where is a safe place.

There probably are none.

MAINALI: All the buildings collapsing

and the dust erupting out of there,

the birds flying, people shouting.

The only word which I can describe about it

is it was very scary.

There's something inherently frightening

about standing on the thing you thought

was the most secure thing in your life, which is the earth,

and having it suddenly move underneath you.

NARRATOR: Upping the fear even more for young Shristi

is that she's hours away from her family,

who live in Kathmandu.

Anything happens to me or anything happens to them,

then we cannot meet immediately.

There is no, like... The transportation was halted.

The flights and everything were halted.

[ People screaming ]

NARRATOR: So all she can do with her friends

is to pray they get through this alive.

MAINALI: We were trying to pacify each other,

to support each other.

Everyone tried to survive together.

♪♪

NARRATOR: Shristi, her friends,

along with her family, did survive,

though it took her 31 nerve-racking days

to finally reunite with them.

Luckily, nothing happened to Dad, Mom,

my brother and sister, four of them.

Luckily, everyone were fine at my home.

NARRATOR: But not everyone else was as lucky,

with the disaster claiming a heartbreaking 9,000 lives,

making this the deadliest earthquake

to hit the region in over 80 years.

People are going to lose their lives.

It's just unavoidable with that size of a quake.

[ Indistinct talking ]

ORR-EWING: And a conclusion we might draw

from that kind of scale of loss

is how amazing, how precious to be alive

if one has escaped death,

and certainly that sort of scale,

to experience massive gratitude

but also to really reflect on the meaning

and purpose of one's own life.

NARRATOR: Although Shristi is certainly grateful

to have survived,

the dramatic quake still haunts her to this day.

I could not sleep properly, and every time,

even the slightest of the tremor would scare me.

And it was like a nightmare.

It was like a nightmare.

[ People screaming ]

NARRATOR: Coming up...

a family road trip...

[ All screaming ]

...turns into a nightmare.

HOLLIE: Am I gonna die on my vacation?

[ Screaming continues ]

♪♪

NARRATOR: Mother Nature unleashes her wrath

in countless ways,

and one of the most common yet terrifying

is a roaring thunderstorm.

[ Thunder crashes ]

But sometimes these tempests

contain a more vicious ingredient... hail.

And when solid chunks of ice smash down onto your car,

all you can do is hope the roof doesn't cave in.

HOLLIE: We're about to die on the freeway.

[ Children screaming ]

NARRATOR: June 1, 2019, Amarillo, Texas.

Diego and Hollie Ortiz and their five children

are on their way home to Albuquerque, New Mexico,

after a family vacation in Branson, Missouri.

HOLLIE: There's gold in there.

You guys excited?

[ Indistinct talking ]

I'm Hollie. I'm Diego.

We have five kids. Our oldest is a boy.

We have twin 6-year-old girls, a 4-year-old girl,

and then a 2-year-old girl.

NARRATOR: With four more hours of driving ahead of them,

the family spots an ominous wall of clouds on the Texas horizon.

While Hollie is growing nervous, Diego is excited.

HOLLIE: This stinking storm we're about to drive through,

I swear we're gonna see a tornado.

Diego, his whole life, I think he just wants to see a tornado.

I could care less.

I mean, I would like to live.

I love rain.

I love just, like, the dark weather.

I don't know why. It's just so beautiful to me.

A lot of people, when they see bad weather,

it's almost intoxicating.

It draws you into it.

You just want to see what's going to happen.

HOLLIE: Like, this is so, like, a black storm.

They're, like, low.

I had a really bad feeling when I saw the dark clouds.

I hope we don't die, guys.

This might be the last you see of us.

It looked like you were driving into some black hole of clouds,

and you had no clue what was gonna be around you

inside those clouds.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, the radio warns of a severe thunderstorm,

advising drivers to get off the road and take cover.

We weren't used to the storm warning on the radio,

which was kind of scary.

I guess I don't realize, like, the danger sometimes of things.

And I just think, "Oh, we'll just drive right through it."

[ Thunder crashing ]

I remember kind of thinking, like, "Should I?

Eh, maybe I shouldn't."

And she's like, "Oh, you need to pull over now."

It's too late to seek shelter.

So Diego pulls off at the next exit

and parks the minivan next to a building.

HOLLIE: That's what I said, Ezra.

I just basically pulled up on the side of it,

pretty much, like, on their sidewalk of the building,

just to try to get as much protection as we could.

I am afraid of storms.

Like, deathly afraid.

We're about to die on the freeway

on the side of the road, and it's pouring.

It's, like, flooding.

NARRATOR: But the storm is just getting started.

Out of nowhere, a violent onslaught of hail attacks.

[ All screaming ]

The hail was just, like, pounding down so hard.

I was praying and hoping that nothing would happen.

[ Hail pounding ]

And that was what scared our children

was the loudness of the hail.

And I screamed and scared everybody, probably.

I couldn't control my fear, either.

I was like, "Am I gonna die on my vacation?"

[ Screaming continues ]

I think the hardest thing is, especially as a parent,

is helplessness, the fear in their eyes.

They're pretty terrified.

[ All crying, screaming ]

How am I going to protect my children

even if I have to lose my life?

[ Hail pounding, children crying ]

At one point, it got to golf-ball size,

which I'm surprised that didn't smash our windshield.

When the golf-size hail came,

I actually turned off the camera.

[ Children screaming ]

Will the windshield be strong enough to protect the family?

♪♪

We just waited.

We waited probably... I want to say maybe 15 minutes,

and then there was all this hail all over the floor.

It was such a relief once we got through the storm.

Once it was gone, I was like,

"Thank you, Lord, for getting us through this."

And to see my kids and how happy they were to get out of there,

it was great.

Having survived the brutal hail

and with all five children now calm,

Diego and Hollie head back home to New Mexico,

ending a family vacation they won't soon forget.

You're just glad you got out of it.

Now it's like PTSD almost.

The kids still freak out to this day

just from the rain as much as I do.

It's likely that these kids will remember this situation.

It was that traumatic.

But the question becomes, will they have an opportunity

to process it and that way get over it?

NARRATOR: One thing's for sure,

if the family ever ends up facing a storm like this again,

Diego and Hollie now know exactly how to handle it.

If the guy on the radio is saying,

"Get in and find shelter," go find shelter.

Don't try to take a risk,

'cause it can turn into something more serious

and you can literally be risking your life.

[ Hail pounding, children screaming ]

Coming up, monster mud swallows up the innocent.

Will this woman survive?

♪♪

NARRATOR: Dangerous weather lurks

on all four corners of the planet

and can strike without warning at any time.

One of the most frightening and devastating is the mudslide.

This gruesome mix of water, debris, and gravity

moves at record speeds,

devouring everything in its path,

from cars to animals to, God, help us...

...people.

March 15, 2017, Punta Hermosa, Peru.

This picturesque beach town sits 25 miles south of Lima,

the country's capital.

In recent weeks, a barrage of thunderstorms

fueled by the climate pattern known as El Niño

have been dumping 10 times more rainfall than usual.

El Niño is a variation in the earth's normal weather patterns.

In this instance, it produced heavier rains

than normal for this part of Peru.

Adding all that rain leads to landslides and deaths

and people drowning in floods.

NARRATOR: As flooding begins to drench Punta Hermosa,

the hills start to erode and the rivers roar.

And almost instantly,

a massive mudslide barrels through the area.

VAGELL: Sometimes these mudslides can reach speeds

that are 60, 70, 80 miles an hour.

That's like end of the world.

That's like a doomsday situation with a wall of mud.

NARRATOR: A crowd of shocked onlookers watch helplessly...

...as the unstoppable avalanche of monster mud

carries with it remnants of this charming coastal community.

DELGADO: The situation here was just terrifying.

Everything in its path was its casualty.

You can see homes.

You can see the debris left behind.

You see, like, parts of a roof.

NARRATOR: But it's not just wood and debris

that are caught in the cross hairs of this calamity.

All I kept thinking was, "Somebody help that cow out."

The cow, she's probably just so shell-shocked,

like, "What happened?"

Then you see the little baby pig,

and it didn't look like the pig was moving.

This was one of the most heartbreaking videos I've seen.

PHOENIX: You can't overstate the dangers that mudslides bring

to communities that are a little bit more rural.

You've got livestock that's at risk, as well as people.

NARRATOR: The already dangerous situation turns dire...

...when a 5,000-pound shipping container

swept up in the violent torrent

gets wedged at a bridge opening,

creating a potentially lethal whirlpool effect.

When you're talking about several feet of mud,

debris moving, swirling around,

the latter stage of a mudslide,

you wouldn't want to be near that

because that could be a deadly situation.

The power of this mudslide is no joke.

Its ability to disrupt and to tear up is profound.

NARRATOR: And then amidst the chaos,

a sight even more harrowing.

It's almost like a scene out of a scary movie.

It really is.

It's really even kind of hard to tell

that it's actually a person.

They're covered in so much mud,

they essentially look like kind of the debris

and the wood there.

NARRATOR: The woman is seen desperately trying

to claw her way out of the wreckage.

Well, my immediate thought was,

she can't possibly have survived it

'cause of the sheer force of the movement.

And then to see that she was alive

and clambering out and the amazement of the crowd watching,

it must have been overwhelming odds against her surviving that.

She was able to pull herself out,

exhausted, bruised, walk across that debris,

and make it to shore and save herself.

I feel her survival was almost paranormal in nature.

If this happened 2,000 years ago,

she might have been hailed as the mud goddess

that was to be worshiped because of her survival

of something so incredibly massive.

NARRATOR: Not only is the woman somehow alive,

equally miraculous is the fact that she avoids serious injury,

being treated later at the hospital

for only minor cuts and bruises.

It just seems so surreal that somebody's gonna be

coming out of this dangerous mudslide.

And she came out of there like a superhero.

She was a fighter, and she came out of this alive.

NARRATOR: So doomsday has arrived.

What would you do if you were trapped inside a twister?

MARK: My house is freaking destroyed.

NARRATOR: Attacked by a wall of ice?

HOOPER: Oh, my!

NARRATOR: Caught within the crumbling earth?

Or held prisoner in your own home?

WOMAN: It's coming up. It's at the window.

NARRATOR: Just hope and pray...

[ Indistinct shouting ]

...you live to tell about it.

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