00:00Now, of course you know that the Amazon River is famous for its piranhas, bull sharks, and other creatures you don't want to meet.
00:10But there are even more dangerous rivers in the world.
00:13The deepest of them, the Congo, goes so far down in some sections that even light can't reach there.
00:19It's the only major river that crosses the equator twice and carries enough water to fill more than 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools into the Atlantic Ocean every second.
00:30Wow!
00:31Even the most experienced boaters have trouble passing through all of the river's strong currents, rapids in its upper part, and waterfalls and gorges in the lower section.
00:41The Congo currents are so fast and powerful that they even divide animals like mountains and oceans do.
00:47There are new species of fish evolving separately on the two banks as they can't reach the other side and breed with each other.
00:55One of the most dangerous types of fish living here is the goliath tigerfish.
01:00These monsters that grow up to 5 feet and travel at the speed of 25 miles per hour are relatives of piranhas.
01:07Their mouths are full of vicious, razor-sharp teeth.
01:10Their females lay hundreds of thousands of eggs, and the offspring are predators from birth.
01:15You have a good reason to fear the goliath tigerfish, as they're the only freshwater fish in Africa that have attacked crocodiles and even humans.
01:25Okay, not swimming there.
01:28There are dense jungles and more hungry wildlife, including snakes and some aggressive hippos, all along the river.
01:35Still, it's used as a water highway in Central Africa, so barges traveling on it for weeks are often crowded with up to 2,000 people and capsize every now and then.
01:47And if you believe the local folklore, there's one more thing to be afraid of.
01:51The one who stops the flow of the rivers.
01:54A dinosaur-like beast that is said to live in the Congo River basin.
01:58There have been over 100 sightings over the last century, but no one can provide solid evidence the beast is real.
02:08At the turn of the 21st century, there was a series of terrible, mysterious stories on the Kali River in Asia.
02:15Something described as a mud-colored water pig would drag swimmers underwater in front of terrified eyewitnesses.
02:22British biologist Jeremy Wade stepped up to crack the case.
02:26He noticed that all the scary incidents were happening in one specific spot, stretching about 4 miles.
02:33Villagers told him this creature was growing big and bad from all the food it got.
02:38Wade examined the water with a depth sounder and thought it could have been a whirlpool.
02:43Then the monster dragged a domestic water buffalo into the water.
02:47The buffaloes are big and heavy, so the creature that attacked it would have to be super strong.
02:53Saltwater crocodiles don't go so far inland.
02:56And the most common local species of crocodiles don't live in cold waters.
03:00There were no bull sharks in the area either.
03:03Finally, Wade spotted several goonch catfish underwater.
03:08Some of them were human-sized.
03:10They couldn't capture these monsters with a regular fishing rod, but a special ceremonial construction did the job.
03:16The largest fish was 6 feet 7 inches long and 3 times the weight of an average gaunch.
03:22It was large enough to take down a human or a large animal, but Wade mentioned there could be even bigger ones living in the Kali River.
03:31The Orinoco River in South America is dangerous to navigate because of some crazy curves and strong underwater currents.
03:40It's easy to get lost here, even if you have your GPS on.
03:43There are sudden waterfalls all along, and you must be prepared to handle those to survive.
03:50The river is the only home to a rare Orinoco crocodile and has some pretty scary-looking vampire fish swimming around.
03:57This payara fish has sharp, spiky daggers that line their gums and two elongated fangs that rise from their lower jaws.
04:05Hmm, could probably use an orthodontist and some braces, you think?
04:09It's a ferocious hunter constantly looking for the next victim, which is going to be a medium or large-sized fish.
04:16If a human catches a payara, it will defend itself, leaving cuts, nips, and bites.
04:21But there are no known cases of this cutie taking a human life.
04:26Well, that's good.
04:27The Yellow River in China received its name after its color, but it wasn't always this yellow.
04:35It was first formed at least 30 million years ago and shifted its course over 30 times over the centuries.
04:42Yellow sediments moving downstream from a plateau in the distance transformed it from clear to muddy.
04:48This fine-grained substance piled up at the bottom of the river and formed natural dams.
04:54The huge amounts of water that the river carries need to find their way to the sea.
04:59And that's when major floods happened, taking several million lives in various epochs.
05:05The locals tried to solve the problem by building higher and higher levees, but it only made things worse.
05:11Water coming out of the river would now have nowhere to back up,
05:16as the riverbed was higher than the surrounding land.
05:19This even shifted the river's mouth.
05:21Now there are massive dams and dikes all along the river to try to contain it.
05:27The Piranha River is the second longest in Latin America and has many tributaries.
05:33They flow in from the highlands near the Andes, and there's a huge drainage in the wet season.
05:38This makes the river a perfect home for, guess what, piranhas.
05:42There are 30 to 60 species of these scary fish in the piranha waters.
05:48In late 2013, they attacked bathers cooling off by the water on a hot day.
05:53People started running out of the river as they felt something was biting them in the water.
05:58Luckily, no one lost their lives in the accident,
06:00but it's still considered one of the most audacious piranha attacks ever recorded.
06:05Biologists later determined that the type of piranhas, called palomates, was to blame for this,
06:11and humans had probably disturbed their breeding grounds.
06:15Wow.
06:16The piranha also has a strong current that is tricky for boats and swimmers to overcome.
06:21Plus, it often floods, which can be dangerous for people living in the surrounding areas.
06:26The longest river in the world, the Nile, flows through 11 countries all the way into the Mediterranean Sea.
06:35Expeditions have spent centuries looking for its source,
06:38and no one still knows for sure where this mighty river begins.
06:43Adding to the mystery, the Nile takes an unexpected turn right in the middle of the Sahara.
06:48Scientists have figured out the reason is a massive underground rock formation from millions of years ago.
06:54The Nile has served as the most important water highway for civilizations through centuries,
07:00but it has some pretty dangerous inhabitants, like crocodiles that grow to be 20 feet long,
07:05which is slightly more than the height of an average giraffe.
07:09These bad guys can reach a speed of 30 miles per hour on land
07:13and take the lives of a couple hundred people every year.
07:17Hippopotamuses that also live here sometimes go after boats,
07:20and venomous snakes, like the black mamba and the Egyptian cobra, add to the mix.
07:26One of the most dangerous creatures on the Nile is the mosquito,
07:30as they carry around all sorts of diseases that affect hundreds of thousands of people.
07:37The Brahmaputra River in Asia carries waters from the mighty Himalayas.
07:42When the snow is in the mountains melt, the river floods massively,
07:46causing landslides, displacing millions of people,
07:49and taking the lives of hundreds of animals in the nearby national parks.
07:54Such floods are also common during the monsoon season in India,
07:58from June to October, with heavy rains.
08:01The course of the Brahmaputra River has changed incredibly over the past two and a half centuries.
08:06Erosion is another danger it's hiding.
08:09The banks of the river are mostly made of weak, cohesive sand and silt.
08:13And even though the erosion rate has gone down,
08:16it is still the reason a lot of people lose their land and get displaced.
08:21The Brahmaputra is one of the few rivers in the world that has a tidal bore.
08:25That's a strong tidal wave that pushes up the river against the current
08:29where a river empties into an ocean or sea.
08:33And there you have it.
08:33The Brahmaputra River gives a
08:46roads of the river to the river
08:49The Brahmaputra River has a really hard part of
08:52the river in the river
08:55Hurricanes that give us a time of water
08:57When the river is a grid...
08:59Who's going to raise your water sigue and
Comments