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This is one of those little known disasters that shows one of the many ways that the planet can wipe out life. It is shocking that a few bubbles under pressure over time can create a ticking time bomb.
@@a6o932 Oh I can field this one! Is it due to religions ability to completely retard the believers ability to question or apply critical thinking skills?
35 years ago I was at a Haloween party. The host had decorated the house with the usual cobwebs and such and had rented a dry ice (CO2) fog generator. He was disappointed that his drafty main floor prevented the build up of fog so he moved the generator and party to his basement. The effect was much better there as the fog gradually rose up our legs. The host and I were much taller than everyone else and at one point I realized that just talking was making me out of breath. I looked around and realized that every one but the host and I had fallen asleep. We began shaking them awake and moving them upstairs. That was close.
This remind me of old warning stones that exist some places in Japan, just saying “don’t make houses between here and the shore (paraphrase).” They were put up have after prior tsunamis destroyed houses within the danger area.
When people develop a tradition it is usually a good idea to understand why that tradition developed in the first place before doing away with it. In a lot of cases there's a good reason and the ancestors may at some point have known something that we don't.
I was about to comment something similar when I saw your opinion. The ancestors did not have science to explain why things happened so explained it in a way they could understand ie using mythology. Never dismiss every thing locals say about their area just because to our modern ear they sound ridiculous.
@@jujutrini8412 When asked how the Easter Island statues got from the mountain to the coast, the locals said, "They walked." After dismissing this for a long time as folklore and myth, instead presuming that they had to have used log rollers, people are now starting to believe that they did "walk" in a way. By standing the statues upright and lashing ropes to its top, they've been able to replicate a walking motion by tipping the statue back and forth, inching it along with each rock.
"and much that should not have been forgotten, was lost...." one of the deepest lines in LotR. Any time I hear lore, legend, or myth, I know there is a reason behind it. We dismiss way too much.
Evidently a similar disaster had happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. The survivors realised the high ground was safe and areas near the lake dangerous.
That tale of the surviving infant in his deceased mother's arm is just shivering. It also shows that old stories have a grain of truth that when ignored can have dire consequences. Traditions and myths are ancestors' ways of solving problems we forget still remain.
@@wingerding maybe by our time. Play a game of telephone and you’d know why it evolved into a myth. Much easier to digest in that format. Oral histories are the only reason we recently have been finding some of these hidden dangers (looking at you cascadia)
In a Geographics video, Simon talked about a bunch of Native American legends that described, basically, a gigantic earthquake. The legends that could be dated pointed towards the year 1700, or thereabout. And then researchers found written records from Japan about a tsunami that came out of _nowhere_ i January 1700...
“If a conspiratorial mind puts 2 and 2 together, they’ll get 666 inside an Illuminati triangle” Too damn true, Simon, and it speaks to how hard it is to break through someone with such a mindset with logic and reason.
I remember when drones killing people was a conspiracy theory. When the government listening to every phone call, reading all your email and texts was a conspiracy. When the government weaponized the IRS and other agencies to punish people that didn't agree with them. All conspiracies until proven otherwise. 😉
Dismissing conspiracy theories is for normies "who trust the science" without discernment. Questioning science is how science is done. Conspiracy theories are just the possibilities that are debunked with further investigation. The guy who proposed that it was CO was considered a conspiracy theorist at first but more questions and answered debunked the neutron bomb and proved CO was the cause. My immediate suspicion was hydrogen sulfide (canary in the mine) which I would have also tested for. So debunking conspiracy theories before investigation as is the norm among the trusting normie community is actually ignorance.
They quite literally burped a lake. In all seriousness though, this was devastating and interesting all at the same time. Those poor people and animals! And it just goes to show that ancient lore should never be dismissed just because it may not be true in a literal sense. I used to live in Central Australia and there was a waterhole about an hour west. It’s *thought* to be about 30m deep but has never been confirmed. I was at a canoe camp there in the mid-90s, we were out on the water and suddenly this rush of bubbles came up through the water that was so thick we thought it was a solid object. Although it wouldn’t be volcanic in origin, and my experience wasn’t as drastic, this video makes me wonder if a similar kind of process made those bubbles come up the way they did.
I mean, isn't everything in Australia trying to kill ya? Dang can't even go fishing without the water belching death!! Hi to our neighbors down south idk how y'all do it!
I have inhaled pure CO2 once. It takes your breath away, instantly giving one the feeling as if been without air for minutes. Our breath reflex triggers at ~4%CO2 So it goes in alarm mode at sensing 100% CO2.
As a midshipman got to go into the ship’s Talos missile magazine for USS Long Beach (CGN-9). Along sides, entire walls were lined with bright red cylinders. One of our group piped up and asked why they were there. The missile tech said if the horn sounded / flashing light comes on you have seconds to climb up the racks and out of the magazine before the CO2 kills you. Basically you were dead as it was at least 30 feet from where we were standing up to main deck level where you could exit the magazine. PS - Reading about the Russian ship Moskva, it brought back memories of touring the Talos magazine. PS2 - Recall reading about this tragedy in National Geographic.
Automatic co2 extinguishers are common in industrial environments. If a whole room is flooded, they come with a time delay. Running 50m and climbing 3 stories on a possibly oily floor within 30 seconds is no joke though.
I was in the Peace Corps at this time. I was in training in Bamenda, the provincial capital where Nyos is located. There were lots of international aid workers in the days after the disaster.
THIS is probably the coolest geographics video I've watched so far. Usually I know a bit about the topics but WOW this was so interesting and engaging to watch
I was surprised to find out how subtle this effect is at times. Working as a medical courier, I have dry ice in my vehicle as I travel. this necessitates measures to avoid a build up of CO2 in the car. One day I got into my car to go to work, I cracked the windows and set there for a second trying to figure out why I was feeling so out of breath. After a moment I remembered that my usual routine for unloading had been interrupted the night before and I had neglected to remove my spare dry ice cooler which is seldom needed. So I got out and ventilated the car before continuing on. Lesson learned for sure!
one of my highschool science professors was there on peace Corp at the time and talked about how many of the groups that arrived to investigate brought preconceived ideas about what must have happened and only investigated their own hypothesis. Also a few hours after it was still chillingly quiet and you could see lines of ants crossing paths, absolutely still as if frozen (because they were dead) he described an infant who survived by being smothered so they couldn't breathe the co2, absolutely horrifying.
I remember this making international news. The comment made about a neutron bomb (that went viral) had everyone talking. When the actual cause was discovered, I wondered about the volcanic crater lakes here in the U.S.
Simon doesn’t go to deep into the mechanics of how this happens. From what I remember after watching a couple more in depth documentaries on this it can only happen to lakes along the equator. Too far north or south and the water gets mixed due to the seasons and prevents a build up like these lakes have.
I believe the Geology hub channel has a video specifically dedicated to limnic eruptions that is very well made. Only about 13 lakes in the world are reasonable candidates
“neutron bombs, evil water nymphs, etc” I never understood why some prefer the most far-fetched, bizarre explanations for events over than the straightforward ones (such as Marjorie Taylor Greene speculating that California wildfires were due to Jewish space lasers, instead of that California is hot, dry and windy, with dried leaves everywhere.). I guess we want someone to blame, and not that just that it was a random, a personal event.
I can see that the old taboo of not settling near the lake stems from an earlier co2 event. And since people didn't understood what it was, myths formed about what caused people to die. That is the grain of truth behind a wild myth. Trying to claim the same cause nowadays doesn't fly.
Yea, I suspect if there is something sentient behind the catastrophe, some feel that they can gain control over these fantastic forces. Because a sentient entity can be reasoned with, placated, etc.
I can forgive these people because they live away from most western or modern technologies and education. As for that politician, she's another casualty to the "I don't trust the government and therefore nor do I trust traditional science" crowd. You know, the ones who establish their hardcore beliefs on theories but that's it. Never proof, never facts, just classic "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own" bullshit. I've had to become very distant with some of my family who've turned out like this. There's no way to get them back when they go that far, unfortunately. They have to want to be helped, first...and they rarely ever do.
What's facinating is why today is a deadly and horrifying loss of human life is also the source of our understanding of life as humans. Such as the Messel Pit in Germany, it was once such a lake in the eocene (I think) and has provided us flipping AMAZING fossils.
In some African lakes, they are literally slowly, releasing the toxic CO2 from the bottom of the lake using specially designed machines to prevent something like this from happening again.
I had never heard of this disaster, and it was huge. When it comes to volcanic eruptions, it's normally from a crater emerging from the earth's surface, not underwater. A sad story but at least this lake's gas is now controlled
You have land-dweller's bias. Most volcanos are actually underwater, most of the volcanos us land dwellers see are on the surface. P.S. You should check that lake out - it's one part of a HUGE caldera.
I remember this happening when I was a little kid. Despite living on the other side of the planet I was too young to fully understand it so was freaked out by lakes in general for a while. I think it coming a year or two after Bhopal made me really worried about mass suffocation.
What's more frightening. One of the lakes prone to Limnic eruptions is Lake Kivu, 2 million people live on it's shores and shows a localised extinction event every 1000 years. That's a disaster that could wipe out so many without warning.
Last year, we had to evacuate for fear that the earthquakes after the eruption of Nyiragongo would trigger a limnic eruption of Lake Kivu. It was the second evacuation, the first being for the initial volcanic eruption. It is a bit scary living between a volcano and a poison lake, but is still one of the most beautiful places in the world.
I know in Japan there was a similar situation but that was sulfuric gas. It covered the surrounding area in a 2 foot tall fog of death. Lasted for a week or 2 pretty crazy what volcanoes can do.
Imagine the international meeting. "Yes we are going to need depth charges Mr. Chairmen." "But you don't have a navy?" "No we need it to bomb our poison lakes." "You're what!"
There is a theory that an event, such as the disaster discussed in this video of Lake Nyos, occurred during the time that Moses sought to free his people from the bondage of slavery under Egyptian rule. The theory speculates that a cataclysmic, volcanic event had occurred, relative to the time of Moses' quest, that had triggered a massive gas release similar to what had happened at Lake Nyos. During the time period of the alleged exodus from Egypt, the first-born sons of Egyptian families were given a place of honor for where to sleep within the household; that place of honor being lower to the ground than for most (if not all) of the rest of the family. The enslaved families, however, did not follow the same tradition. Due to these circumstances, it is theorized that since the deadly gas that had been released was confined to the lower parts of affected areas, the majority of resulting deaths were of what seemed to be only of all of Egypt's first-born sons, i.e., the tenth plague of Egypt. Of course, this is only a theory to an event which is debated to have actually happened, but I thought it was relative and appropriate to mention the theory here.
I remember watching a video on the Moses theory. It was a decade ago but the part of the gas was discussed in the video. One other thing was that was talked about is when the waters turned red like blood it was possible due to a deposit of a type of oxidized iron being releases into the water.
@@sanddoom2089 there's a good chance I've watched the same video as I remember the part about the red blood coloring of the water; the red blood coloring of the water being also mentioned as part of the events that occurred at Lake Nyos.
@@josephschultz3301 you would be correct as the volcanic activity theorized to have affected Egypt was the Minoan eruption of the Santorini Volcano in the Southern Aegean Sea, (near Crete. Also, I may be mis-labelling the event but the names and locations are correct if you are compelled to research this theory further.) Although there is a prevailing belief that the eruption and the events of the exodus allege an approximate 150 (+/-) years time gap, updated research has been finding evidence that this time gap could be a long standing error based on inadequate or faulty research/information.
I went on a solo adventure to Rwanda from the uk in 2018 to see the mountain gorillas. With no gorilla excursion booked I ended up on a bus heading to Uganda with a californian who I had just met. I'd been in Rwanda 10 hours and way out of my comfort zone I was on my way to Uganda with a stranger. We met Dutch Steve when we got to kisoro in Uganda and I ended up seeing the Mountain gorillas on my birthday with two strangers in an unplanned country. Those two guys went to Kampala Uganda's capital and I headed back to Kigali. Dutch Steve recommended that I go to a place on Lake kivu called kibuya. It was a beautiful place Lake kivu is absolutely massive Its around 30 miles x 18 miles. I went on a boat trip on Lake kivu to napoleon Island, past the presidents House Paul kigami. That was one hell of a solo adventure.
As always, the depth and breadth of Mr. Simon Whistler's delivery is impeccable! How a man can go from flirting with insanity in business blaze and still cover solemn topics succinctly and with care as this humanitarian disaster absolutely fascinates me! Keep on the good work! You and your team have got a long lasting listener in me and I am quickly converting most my family and nearly all coworkers to your works, Mark Felton and Simon Whistler for leaders of the free world(maybe, who knows...might be dangerous leftwingers, hahahha) For real, i am in awe of all your teams talents and frequency of content so skilfully produced. I shudder to think of a world without the whistler hive mind.. Feed danny, at least though. Heh
All this video tells me is that we shouldn’t simply dismiss the stories of our elders. Even when based in myth, stories are still a way of communicating information.
Legends have a reason for existing. There’s usually something real, buried beneath local superstition and the distortions of time. If a culture believes something to be cursed and there’s always a very specific WAY it is supposed to be cursed, there may truly be something dangerous going on
Well, I think we know where those death-tales come from. I.E. People who where near it suddenly dropping dead from asphyxiation. But given the lakeside wasn't consistently starved of oxygen, one minute it was a death-trap while another it was not. That would confuse the hell out of any people who didn't understand the gas/fluid we live in.
Wow Simon thank you for sharing that. For such a horrifying incident it was truly devastating to hear the toll of the lost but what an amazing achievement and outcome to remedy the problem. Also part of the reason i like to find out the reason behind traditions, not all of them are superstition.
Dat conspiracy theorist image though, pure golden content, of the highest quality! On a serious note, hot damn that would be some scary shizz to live through.
I remember when this happened. I couldn't believe the news reports at the time! I love the completeness of your story from the ancient myths to the modern fix of science. Thank you for another great video!
Europeans and Americans directly helping people outside of the western world is a great sight. We have the resources to help those in need. More should be done.
gases dissolve better in cool / cold water and with pressure, both of which were on the bottom of the lake. once you have an upwelling of saturated water gas is released from solution (much like opening a soda bottle) this is also very similar to how geysers work, except in the case of geysers water under ground is heated but doesn't boil due to the pressure. eventually the heat builds up to a point where the pressure can't keep the water from boiling. this boiling pushes water upward releasing the pressure causing more water to boil off, this creates a cascading effect we witness as a geyser.
Myths were created to put an explanation to our world. Like the story of the eagle and the whale among many of the northwest tribes of the United States, just because it’s dressed up with gods doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Apparently this stuff has happened in Germany too. In the vulkaneifel there are a few Maars, and in one of the museums there was something about gasses coming up and killing a village in the middle ages I think
I'm Cameroonian, from the region where Lake Nyos is located though I wasn't born yet when the tragedy happened. For many, it's the West that was testing a chemical weapon. When I think that Lake Kivu in Congo is far worse potential death toll given the 2-3 million people who live on the border ... I can't even imagine.
People usually think of CO as a a deadly agent but not C02. The Neutron Bomb would have bee rapidly dismissed as to have these effects it would have had to been an air burst in the 1500 to 2500 ft range.
The explosion part of a neutron bomb would still be extremely destructive. They were meant to be used against Soviet tank divisions, the neutrons were supposed to make the tanks radioactive but that was found to be not as effective as hoped.
I used to sell ice cream from a cart when I was a teenager which was full of dry ice. I never understood why I felt so sleepy and lethargic until much later when I realised that several hours of shoving my upper body in and out of a cart was probably exposing me to some pretty high co2 concentrations. The shit we do thinking it's just fine and dandy.
Speaking of African lakes would it be possible to get a video on Geographics on Lake Chad formally one of the largest lakes in the world it has been shrinking especially at a faster pace since the 1960s with the effects of climate change
Had never heard of the lake or the disaster before this video. It never seems to get mentioned in the media yet it was hugely significant at the time (it must have been, surely). Living in the UK I feel quite lucky. We'll never have tidal waves, volcanic eruptions or anything above the lowest points on the richter scale. The worst thing we'll experience is a day or two of flooding. Some people and some nations aren't blessed with that luck and I feel so bad for the people that died and their families.
It's funny how many "superstitions" and myths/fairy tales, have at their center that kernel of truth. But the story morphs over time like a game of Chinese whispers to be less and less believable.
I was traveling Africa 4x4 overland in 1986 /87 and never heard about this happening in Cameroon even though we passed right through this region and Chad , CAR etc
I remember hearing about this disaster when I was little; I even remember that there was an hypothesis about the tenth plague of Egypt (biblical story) that related an eruption of this kind to the death of all the firstborns, as they used to sleep on the floor.
I once reached into a container of dry ice to get a cold drink and forgot to hold my breath so I took what was a very tiny whiff thru the nose and it burned but I was fine cuz I of course instinctively stopped breathing so I can imagine what this must have been like
I always imagined that there were a LARGE group of locals who utterly disbelieved the official story of what happened (the same way that flat-earthers completely and utterly reject evidence of objective reality). Instead- I imagine- these locals insist on spreading a story about an angry sorcerer or witch-doctor, who cast an evil spell, killing the residents of the village for some slight or other that they were supposed to have inflicted on him. I also imagine that there are any number of locals (elders), who are ready to swear on their lives that they saw the evil warlock casting his evil spell...
Oh, man. This actually happened on my birthday. Year and all. My middle name is based on a God of the underworld and water and water related deaths. I'm sure my mother didn't know this happened when she named me but that's wild.
I actually did a 4-H speech on this event back when I was in 5th grade. The National Geographic article on the event scared me to death . . . so I *had* to tell the story.
One of the various horror narration channels told a story about a family who was saved because the grandfather needed an oxygen tank, and they used the air to get to higher ground. Horrifying.
Rise, fall, move, or explode? Rise: an underwater magmatic expulsion. Fall: a magma chamber collapse. Move: tough one but imma go with a natural land dam break Explode: a gas eruption or a local magma that causes massive gas bubbles on contact with water most likely methane (touched an open fire source?)
Go to curiositystream.thld.co/geographics_0622 and use code GEOGRAPHICS to save 25% off today, that’s only $14.99 a year. Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today’s video.
This is one of those little known disasters that shows one of the many ways that the planet can wipe out life. It is shocking that a few bubbles under pressure over time can create a ticking time bomb.
Damn nature, you scary!
Doesn't matter. Religion will still trump any logic. Why?
@@a6o932 Oh I can field this one! Is it due to religions ability to completely retard the believers ability to question or apply critical thinking skills?
@@a6o932 Psalm 14:1
@@jay-d8g3v I'll keep that in mind while I put my trust in science, research, and facts.
Only when one has a mosquito on their testicle, does one accept that not all problems can be solved with violence.
Put that in a fortune cookie.
CBT enthusiasts: My time has come.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Nope, kill it and take the pain like a man.
@@lloydster9000 It's an African proverb. We have a lot of these
35 years ago I was at a Haloween party. The host had decorated the house with the usual cobwebs and such and had rented a dry ice (CO2) fog generator. He was disappointed that his drafty main floor prevented the build up of fog so he moved the generator and party to his basement. The effect was much better there as the fog gradually rose up our legs. The host and I were much taller than everyone else and at one point I realized that just talking was making me out of breath. I looked around and realized that every one but the host and I had fallen asleep. We began shaking them awake and moving them upstairs. That was close.
Wow, that’s dangerous!
You were lucky three people died after dry ice was poured into a swimming pool at a party in Moscow.
i dont believe that to be fully true lmao.
@@ethanroumpf8923 Okay? Nobody really asked, bud.
@@ethanroumpf8923 with all the dumb things people do this is unbelievable to you
This remind me of old warning stones that exist some places in Japan, just saying “don’t make houses between here and the shore (paraphrase).” They were put up have after prior tsunamis destroyed houses within the danger area.
"Don't even _think_ of building a nuclear power plant here."
When people develop a tradition it is usually a good idea to understand why that tradition developed in the first place before doing away with it.
In a lot of cases there's a good reason and the ancestors may at some point have known something that we don't.
I was about to comment something similar when I saw your opinion. The ancestors did not have science to explain why things happened so explained it in a way they could understand ie using mythology. Never dismiss every thing locals say about their area just because to our modern ear they sound ridiculous.
@@jujutrini8412 When asked how the Easter Island statues got from the mountain to the coast, the locals said, "They walked."
After dismissing this for a long time as folklore and myth, instead presuming that they had to have used log rollers, people are now starting to believe that they did "walk" in a way.
By standing the statues upright and lashing ropes to its top, they've been able to replicate a walking motion by tipping the statue back and forth, inching it along with each rock.
"and much that should not have been forgotten, was lost...." one of the deepest lines in LotR. Any time I hear lore, legend, or myth, I know there is a reason behind it. We dismiss way too much.
Evidently a similar disaster had happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. The survivors realised the high ground was safe and areas near the lake dangerous.
I agree 100%. There's so much ancient knowledge that is dismissed as mere legend and myth. We do so at our peril.
That tale of the surviving infant in his deceased mother's arm is just shivering. It also shows that old stories have a grain of truth that when ignored can have dire consequences. Traditions and myths are ancestors' ways of solving problems we forget still remain.
Nah I'm pretty sure they actually believed those stories.
@@wingerding maybe by our time. Play a game of telephone and you’d know why it evolved into a myth. Much easier to digest in that format.
Oral histories are the only reason we recently have been finding some of these hidden dangers (looking at you cascadia)
True... Ancestor Superstitions have a grain of truth, though without science they can't explain it without sounding absurd...
In a Geographics video, Simon talked about a bunch of Native American legends that described, basically, a gigantic earthquake. The legends that could be dated pointed towards the year 1700, or thereabout.
And then researchers found written records from Japan about a tsunami that came out of _nowhere_ i January 1700...
“If a conspiratorial mind puts 2 and 2 together, they’ll get 666 inside an Illuminati triangle” Too damn true, Simon, and it speaks to how hard it is to break through someone with such a mindset with logic and reason.
Spoken like a true robot 👏
I remember when drones killing people was a conspiracy theory. When the government listening to every phone call, reading all your email and texts was a conspiracy. When the government weaponized the IRS and other agencies to punish people that didn't agree with them. All conspiracies until proven otherwise. 😉
@@travispoettcker1078 Spoken like a conspiracy freak.
Here's a conspiracy for you, Simon didn't write that!
Dismissing conspiracy theories is for normies "who trust the science" without discernment. Questioning science is how science is done. Conspiracy theories are just the possibilities that are debunked with further investigation. The guy who proposed that it was CO was considered a conspiracy theorist at first but more questions and answered debunked the neutron bomb and proved CO was the cause. My immediate suspicion was hydrogen sulfide (canary in the mine) which I would have also tested for. So debunking conspiracy theories before investigation as is the norm among the trusting normie community is actually ignorance.
They quite literally burped a lake.
In all seriousness though, this was devastating and interesting all at the same time. Those poor people and animals! And it just goes to show that ancient lore should never be dismissed just because it may not be true in a literal sense.
I used to live in Central Australia and there was a waterhole about an hour west. It’s *thought* to be about 30m deep but has never been confirmed. I was at a canoe camp there in the mid-90s, we were out on the water and suddenly this rush of bubbles came up through the water that was so thick we thought it was a solid object. Although it wouldn’t be volcanic in origin, and my experience wasn’t as drastic, this video makes me wonder if a similar kind of process made those bubbles come up the way they did.
Nah, in your case, it was just Cthulhu swimming around underneath you.
I mean, isn't everything in Australia trying to kill ya? Dang can't even go fishing without the water belching death!! Hi to our neighbors down south idk how y'all do it!
@@quantidel bubbly lakes are nothing - you should see our drop bears!
@@BeeMcDee I've never heard of those. What beast is this you speak of?
@@wingerding vicious little buggers. Scratch your eyes out as quickly as you can say ‘gum leaves’. 😉
"Mother nature is neither friend nor an enemy... In fact, she's quite impartial."
- Senku Ishigami, Dr. Stone.
I have inhaled pure CO2 once. It takes your breath away, instantly giving one the feeling as if been without air for minutes. Our breath reflex triggers at ~4%CO2 So it goes in alarm mode at sensing 100% CO2.
Like breathing in the fizz from a coke bottle
@@graxo3752 Far worse.
They use this effect on our body as a form of torture
Mind if I ask why you did / had to do that?
@@scifino1 At work, as green kid. Big 1m³ container of dry ice. They would bet I couldn't keep my breath.. duh 😁
As a midshipman got to go into the ship’s Talos missile magazine for USS Long Beach (CGN-9). Along sides, entire walls were lined with bright red cylinders. One of our group piped up and asked why they were there. The missile tech said if the horn sounded / flashing light comes on you have seconds to climb up the racks and out of the magazine before the CO2 kills you. Basically you were dead as it was at least 30 feet from where we were standing up to main deck level where you could exit the magazine.
PS - Reading about the Russian ship Moskva, it brought back memories of touring the Talos magazine.
PS2 - Recall reading about this tragedy in National Geographic.
Billy Lloyd Dey?
Automatic co2 extinguishers are common in industrial environments. If a whole room is flooded, they come with a time delay. Running 50m and climbing 3 stories on a possibly oily floor within 30 seconds is no joke though.
I was in the Peace Corps at this time. I was in training in Bamenda, the provincial capital where Nyos is located. There were lots of international aid workers in the days after the disaster.
2:15 - Chapter 1 - A taboo maar
4:45 - Chapter 2 - A shroud of silence
9:05 - Chapter 3 - Bombs & sirens
12:10 - Chapter 4 - Science cracks the case
15:55 - Chapter 5 - Not your ordinary garden hose
18:55 - Chapter 6 - A future threat
THIS is probably the coolest geographics video I've watched so far. Usually I know a bit about the topics but WOW this was so interesting and engaging to watch
I was surprised to find out how subtle this effect is at times. Working as a medical courier, I have dry ice in my vehicle as I travel. this necessitates measures to avoid a build up of CO2 in the car. One day I got into my car to go to work, I cracked the windows and set there for a second trying to figure out why I was feeling so out of breath. After a moment I remembered that my usual routine for unloading had been interrupted the night before and I had neglected to remove my spare dry ice cooler which is seldom needed. So I got out and ventilated the car before continuing on. Lesson learned for sure!
one of my highschool science professors was there on peace Corp at the time and talked about how many of the groups that arrived to investigate brought preconceived ideas about what must have happened and only investigated their own hypothesis. Also a few hours after it was still chillingly quiet and you could see lines of ants crossing paths, absolutely still as if frozen (because they were dead) he described an infant who survived by being smothered so they couldn't breathe the co2, absolutely horrifying.
I remember this making international news. The comment made about a neutron bomb (that went viral) had everyone talking. When the actual cause was discovered, I wondered about the volcanic crater lakes here in the U.S.
Simon doesn’t go to deep into the mechanics of how this happens. From what I remember after watching a couple more in depth documentaries on this it can only happen to lakes along the equator. Too far north or south and the water gets mixed due to the seasons and prevents a build up like these lakes have.
I believe the Geology hub channel has a video specifically dedicated to limnic eruptions that is very well made. Only about 13 lakes in the world are reasonable candidates
“neutron bombs, evil water nymphs, etc” I never understood why some prefer the most far-fetched, bizarre explanations for events over than the straightforward ones (such as Marjorie Taylor Greene speculating that California wildfires were due to Jewish space lasers, instead of that California is hot, dry and windy, with dried leaves everywhere.). I guess we want someone to blame, and not that just that it was a random, a personal event.
I can see that the old taboo of not settling near the lake stems from an earlier co2 event. And since people didn't understood what it was, myths formed about what caused people to die.
That is the grain of truth behind a wild myth. Trying to claim the same cause nowadays doesn't fly.
Yea, I suspect if there is something sentient behind the catastrophe, some feel that they can gain control over these fantastic forces. Because a sentient entity can be reasoned with, placated, etc.
I can forgive these people because they live away from most western or modern technologies and education. As for that politician, she's another casualty to the "I don't trust the government and therefore nor do I trust traditional science" crowd. You know, the ones who establish their hardcore beliefs on theories but that's it. Never proof, never facts, just classic "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own" bullshit. I've had to become very distant with some of my family who've turned out like this. There's no way to get them back when they go that far, unfortunately. They have to want to be helped, first...and they rarely ever do.
Nah not a politician that's goofy
The priest that actually went into the village to save people is awesome
Makes me actually respect the individuals of religion
Some individuals*
when it's "deemed to expensive" to save lives..... how we have fallen.
What's facinating is why today is a deadly and horrifying loss of human life is also the source of our understanding of life as humans. Such as the Messel Pit in Germany, it was once such a lake in the eocene (I think) and has provided us flipping AMAZING fossils.
In some African lakes, they are literally slowly, releasing the toxic CO2 from the bottom of the lake using specially designed machines to prevent something like this from happening again.
I had never heard of this disaster, and it was huge. When it comes to volcanic eruptions, it's normally from a crater emerging from the earth's surface, not underwater. A sad story but at least this lake's gas is now controlled
You have land-dweller's bias. Most volcanos are actually underwater, most of the volcanos us land dwellers see are on the surface.
P.S. You should check that lake out - it's one part of a HUGE caldera.
It was huge and also very unsettling. I can understand why there were legends about the lake being cursed.
I remember this happening when I was a little kid. Despite living on the other side of the planet I was too young to fully understand it so was freaked out by lakes in general for a while. I think it coming a year or two after Bhopal made me really worried about mass suffocation.
What's more frightening. One of the lakes prone to Limnic eruptions is Lake Kivu, 2 million people live on it's shores and shows a localised extinction event every 1000 years. That's a disaster that could wipe out so many without warning.
The whole Rift Valley region is scary man
Nyiragongo has this huge lava lake
Last year, we had to evacuate for fear that the earthquakes after the eruption of Nyiragongo would trigger a limnic eruption of Lake Kivu. It was the second evacuation, the first being for the initial volcanic eruption. It is a bit scary living between a volcano and a poison lake, but is still one of the most beautiful places in the world.
@@michellesmith7728 Scylla and Charybdis ain’t got nothin’ on The Rift Valley…
I know in Japan there was a similar situation but that was sulfuric gas. It covered the surrounding area in a 2 foot tall fog of death. Lasted for a week or 2 pretty crazy what volcanoes can do.
Imagine the international meeting. "Yes we are going to need depth charges Mr. Chairmen."
"But you don't have a navy?"
"No we need it to bomb our poison lakes."
"You're what!"
There is a theory that an event, such as the disaster discussed in this video of Lake Nyos, occurred during the time that Moses sought to free his people from the bondage of slavery under Egyptian rule. The theory speculates that a cataclysmic, volcanic event had occurred, relative to the time of Moses' quest, that had triggered a massive gas release similar to what had happened at Lake Nyos. During the time period of the alleged exodus from Egypt, the first-born sons of Egyptian families were given a place of honor for where to sleep within the household; that place of honor being lower to the ground than for most (if not all) of the rest of the family. The enslaved families, however, did not follow the same tradition. Due to these circumstances, it is theorized that since the deadly gas that had been released was confined to the lower parts of affected areas, the majority of resulting deaths were of what seemed to be only of all of Egypt's first-born sons, i.e., the tenth plague of Egypt.
Of course, this is only a theory to an event which is debated to have actually happened, but I thought it was relative and appropriate to mention the theory here.
This is a very interesting theory! I hadn't heard of it til now, im gonna have to look into it. Thanks for sharing!
I remember watching a video on the Moses theory. It was a decade ago but the part of the gas was discussed in the video. One other thing was that was talked about is when the waters turned red like blood it was possible due to a deposit of a type of oxidized iron being releases into the water.
@@sanddoom2089 there's a good chance I've watched the same video as I remember the part about the red blood coloring of the water; the red blood coloring of the water being also mentioned as part of the events that occurred at Lake Nyos.
I'm not 100% sure (I'm in no way, shape, or form an expert), but I don't believe that there's volcanic activity in Egypt.
@@josephschultz3301 you would be correct as the volcanic activity theorized to have affected Egypt was the Minoan eruption of the Santorini Volcano in the Southern Aegean Sea, (near Crete. Also, I may be mis-labelling the event but the names and locations are correct if you are compelled to research this theory further.)
Although there is a prevailing belief that the eruption and the events of the exodus allege an approximate 150 (+/-) years time gap, updated research has been finding evidence that this time gap could be a long standing error based on inadequate or faulty research/information.
I went on a solo adventure to Rwanda from the uk in 2018 to see the mountain gorillas.
With no gorilla excursion booked I ended up on a bus heading to Uganda with a californian who I had just met.
I'd been in Rwanda 10 hours and way out of my comfort zone I was on my way to Uganda with a stranger.
We met Dutch Steve when we got to kisoro in Uganda and I ended up seeing the Mountain gorillas on my birthday with two strangers in an unplanned country.
Those two guys went to Kampala Uganda's capital and I headed back to Kigali.
Dutch Steve recommended that I go to a place on Lake kivu called kibuya.
It was a beautiful place
Lake kivu is absolutely massive
Its around 30 miles x 18 miles.
I went on a boat trip on Lake kivu to napoleon Island, past the presidents House Paul kigami.
That was one hell of a solo adventure.
Now you guys know why Simon is so passionate about CO2 detectors.
10:40 I see what you did there.
So happy that the international community got together to help these people. More of this please 🙏🏽
Please do more African history, if you can! More people deserve to know about these events.
As always, the depth and breadth of Mr. Simon Whistler's delivery is impeccable! How a man can go from flirting with insanity in business blaze and still cover solemn topics succinctly and with care as this humanitarian disaster absolutely fascinates me!
Keep on the good work! You and your team have got a long lasting listener in me and I am quickly converting most my family and nearly all coworkers to your works, Mark Felton and Simon Whistler for leaders of the free world(maybe, who knows...might be dangerous leftwingers, hahahha)
For real, i am in awe of all your teams talents and frequency of content so skilfully produced. I shudder to think of a world without the whistler hive mind..
Feed danny, at least though. Heh
When the earth cuts the cheese it's for keeps.
A truly bizarre yet horrifying disaster.
A similar disaster at Lake Kivu would be absolutely catastrophic.. it would make the Lake Nyos disaster look like nothing
Simon says biographics and geographics and sister channels to one another, I’m guessing that makes Brain Blaze the fun crazy aunt.
All this video tells me is that we shouldn’t simply dismiss the stories of our elders. Even when based in myth, stories are still a way of communicating information.
Legends have a reason for existing. There’s usually something real, buried beneath local superstition and the distortions of time. If a culture believes something to be cursed and there’s always a very specific WAY it is supposed to be cursed, there may truly be something dangerous going on
Rest In Peace to those that passed away.
Well, I think we know where those death-tales come from. I.E. People who where near it suddenly dropping dead from asphyxiation. But given the lakeside wasn't consistently starved of oxygen, one minute it was a death-trap while another it was not. That would confuse the hell out of any people who didn't understand the gas/fluid we live in.
Wow Simon thank you for sharing that. For such a horrifying incident it was truly devastating to hear the toll of the lost but what an amazing achievement and outcome to remedy the problem. Also part of the reason i like to find out the reason behind traditions, not all of them are superstition.
Dat conspiracy theorist image though, pure golden content, of the highest quality!
On a serious note, hot damn that would be some scary shizz to live through.
I remember when this happened. I couldn't believe the news reports at the time! I love the completeness of your story from the ancient myths to the modern fix of science. Thank you for another great video!
I was just reading about this disaster yesterday. What timing, am I right?
The Trenton State College reference caught me by surprise! It's been The College of New Jersey since 1996.
Europeans and Americans directly helping people outside of the western world is a great sight. We have the resources to help those in need. More should be done.
Mami wata is well known myth in Nigeria easily translates to a mermaid
gases dissolve better in cool / cold water and with pressure, both of which were on the bottom of the lake.
once you have an upwelling of saturated water gas is released from solution (much like opening a soda bottle)
this is also very similar to how geysers work, except in the case of geysers water under ground is heated but doesn't boil due to the pressure. eventually the heat builds up to a point where the pressure can't keep the water from boiling. this boiling pushes water upward releasing the pressure causing more water to boil off, this creates a cascading effect we witness as a geyser.
Myths were created to put an explanation to our world. Like the story of the eagle and the whale among many of the northwest tribes of the United States, just because it’s dressed up with gods doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Firecrackers: the silent killer! Hi, I'm Troy McClure...
Apparently this stuff has happened in Germany too. In the vulkaneifel there are a few Maars, and in one of the museums there was something about gasses coming up and killing a village in the middle ages I think
I remember reading about that when i was about 8 years old and then having an unreasonable fear of CO2 for years.
Climate change must be double as fun for you.
@@Chris.Pontius 😅
I wonder what all that sudden release of CO2 does to the overall atmosphere apart from the horrific localised problems?
Skip ad at 1:24.
Sometimes real life is scarier than any mythical monster.
Still loving your stuff Simon. Keep on keeping on please.
8:02 - a seriously brave and selfless priest!
I'm Cameroonian, from the region where Lake Nyos is located though I wasn't born yet when the tragedy happened. For many, it's the West that was testing a chemical weapon. When I think that Lake Kivu in Congo is far worse potential death toll given the 2-3 million people who live on the border ... I can't even imagine.
One of the most spooky natural disasters to occur
Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.
I’m telling you, you should do a video about the 1755 Lisbon earthquake
Can you do a video on the pink and white terraces in New Zealand
Simon Whistler, the hardest working man on RUclips
People usually think of CO as a a deadly agent but not C02. The Neutron Bomb would have bee rapidly dismissed as to have these effects it would have had to been an air burst in the 1500 to 2500 ft range.
The explosion part of a neutron bomb would still be extremely destructive. They were meant to be used against Soviet tank divisions, the neutrons were supposed to make the tanks radioactive but that was found to be not as effective as hoped.
wow I nvr evr heard about this shocking event and I always thought of myself as a news need. great presentation as always.
I used to sell ice cream from a cart when I was a teenager which was full of dry ice. I never understood why I felt so sleepy and lethargic until much later when I realised that several hours of shoving my upper body in and out of a cart was probably exposing me to some pretty high co2 concentrations. The shit we do thinking it's just fine and dandy.
last time i was this early, simon still had hair
He still has hair. It's just all on his face. And probably other places too.
Speaking of African lakes would it be possible to get a video on Geographics on Lake Chad formally one of the largest lakes in the world it has been shrinking especially at a faster pace since the 1960s with the effects of climate change
The diplomat from this region is still alive and goes around the world spreading messages of love and safety… he goes by the stage name Lil Nyos X
Lesson learned: The next time I go to a lake I'm bringing Mentos.
I remember seeing this on a documentary on the plagues of Egypt.
Loving the blazer
Had never heard of the lake or the disaster before this video. It never seems to get mentioned in the media yet it was hugely significant at the time (it must have been, surely).
Living in the UK I feel quite lucky. We'll never have tidal waves, volcanic eruptions or anything above the lowest points on the richter scale. The worst thing we'll experience is a day or two of flooding.
Some people and some nations aren't blessed with that luck and I feel so bad for the people that died and their families.
Yeah. I really like our climate. Its so ordinary
"Upper Nyos?"
"Ain't been since my birthday in 2019..."
It's funny how many "superstitions" and myths/fairy tales, have at their center that kernel of truth. But the story morphs over time like a game of Chinese whispers to be less and less believable.
Good video 👍
Fascinating and terrifying at the same time
Fascinating. I never heard of this disaster before today. I'm going to have to look into subscribing to Curiosity Stream...
I was traveling Africa 4x4 overland in 1986 /87 and never heard about this happening in Cameroon even though we passed right through this region and Chad , CAR etc
I remember hearing about this disaster when I was little; I even remember that there was an hypothesis about the tenth plague of Egypt (biblical story) that related an eruption of this kind to the death of all the firstborns, as they used to sleep on the floor.
You should do one about the potential disaster of the New Madrid fault line waking up
Be interesting to do the Bhopal, India, disaster, caused by Union Carbide, I believe some 900 people died.🇦🇺
3:40 Never had a mosquito bit my testicle but I have gotten chigger bites on the ol' sack.... not comfortable at all.
Try a spider bite on the shaft, leading to a lancing. I call the scar "Ribbed For Her Pleasure".
I once reached into a container of dry ice to get a cold drink and forgot to hold my breath so I took what was a very tiny whiff thru the nose and it burned but I was fine cuz I of course instinctively stopped breathing so I can imagine what this must have been like
I love that I start understanding this..........and then immediately don't. So many deets I had NEVER considered lol Love this stuff of course though!
I always imagined that there were a LARGE group of locals who utterly disbelieved the official story of what happened (the same way that flat-earthers completely and utterly reject evidence of objective reality). Instead- I imagine- these locals insist on spreading a story about an angry sorcerer or witch-doctor, who cast an evil spell, killing the residents of the village for some slight or other that they were supposed to have inflicted on him. I also imagine that there are any number of locals (elders), who are ready to swear on their lives that they saw the evil warlock casting his evil spell...
Are there any water plants that could be added to help absorb the carbon?
Oh, man. This actually happened on my birthday. Year and all. My middle name is based on a God of the underworld and water and water related deaths. I'm sure my mother didn't know this happened when she named me but that's wild.
This is one of the most horrifying things I've ever heard. My goodness.
I actually did a 4-H speech on this event back when I was in 5th grade. The National Geographic article on the event scared me to death . . . so I *had* to tell the story.
I actually worked on a bid to do work on lake kivu pretty interesting keep up the content
loving the jacket today😊
Thank you for the great video. FASCINATING.
These are so well written! Who writes them? I assume it’s not Brain Blaze’s Danny, although I love his writing, too.
Authors are listed in the credits at the end of each video.
There are grains of truth running through ancient myths.
One of the various horror narration channels told a story about a family who was saved because the grandfather needed an oxygen tank, and they used the air to get to higher ground. Horrifying.
Rise, fall, move, or explode?
Rise: an underwater magmatic expulsion.
Fall: a magma chamber collapse.
Move: tough one but imma go with a natural land dam break
Explode: a gas eruption or a local magma that causes massive gas bubbles on contact with water most likely methane (touched an open fire source?)