- 6 weeks ago
From silent ecological disasters to overlooked humanitarian crises, these moments shook our world but vanished from headlines. Join us as we count down the terrifying global events that didn't get the attention they deserved. From massive coral bleaching to near-catastrophes at Reagan National Airport, these are the disasters that should have dominated the news cycle.
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00:00Last two years, Earth has endured some of the most widespread and destructive droughts ever recorded.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at terrifying global events you probably missed.
00:11These are the disasters, near misses, and creeping catastrophes that didn't dominate headlines, but probably should have.
00:17Foreign aid from the U.S., Europe, and others that kept the country afloat has largely been frozen.
00:24Near misses at Reagan National Airport.
00:27This busy D.C. airport has flirted with disaster thousands of times.
00:32Ten involved at least one military aircraft. Seven involved a military helicopter.
00:36For instance, in May 2024, two airliners were cleared onto the same runway, one for takeoff, the other to land.
00:44They avoided disaster, missing each other by seconds.
00:47Then, on January 29, 2025, tragedy struck.
00:51A regional jet collided midair with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River.
00:56This collision happened while the passenger plane was on approach to runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport.
01:04Sixty-seven lives were lost in the first major U.S. air disaster in more than a decade.
01:09The NTSB found warning signs going back years, thousands of near misses.
01:15Yet, the FAA only restricted helicopter routes after the crash.
01:19Reagan National's deadly wake-up call came silently, and nobody seems to have picked up the phone.
01:25It's too dark to see any airplane wreckage or any helicopter or anything like that.
01:31Kakovka Dam environmental time bomb.
01:34The consequences to come will be for our children and grandchildren,
01:38just as we are the ones now experiencing the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
01:43The Kakova Dam was a worst-case scenario in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
01:47The Russians blew a section to try to halt any Ukrainian counter-offensive.
01:52As it collapsed, the world focused on the immediate flooding.
01:56The cause at this point of the collapse are explosives that were placed on the dam,
02:00and there's only one party that's in a position to do that, and that is, of course, the Russians.
02:05Beneath the surface, another catastrophe began.
02:08The dam held back one of Europe's largest reservoirs.
02:10It was crucial for drinking water, farming, and cooling the Zaporizhia nuclear plant.
02:15Its sudden release flushed toxic sediments, sewage, and industrial waste into the Dnipro River.
02:22Scientists now warn that this may trigger a long-term ecological crisis.
02:26The refugee crisis caused by Russia's war only worsens all of this.
02:30Experts call it a time bomb.
02:32But with war still raging, the full impact may take years to truly see, and decades to fix.
02:39Clean drinking water for the more than quarter million people living here take priority over longer-term environmental impacts.
02:46Yemen's humanitarian nightmare.
02:49Diplomats from Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. met in Geneva today to iron out a resolution
02:54that would establish an international inquiry into atrocities in Yemen.
02:59It's been called the world's worst humanitarian crisis, but it barely makes the news.
03:05Since 2014, Yemen has been torn apart.
03:08What began with civil war and foreign intervention has led to famine.
03:12When Houthi rebels seized the capital, Saudi Arabia launched a relentless bombing campaign.
03:17Blockades followed, cutting off food, fuel, and medicine.
03:21Civilians bore the brunt.
03:23Hospitals were targeted.
03:30Cholera outbreaks exploded.
03:32And millions went hungry.
03:34Over four million people have been displaced.
03:36Millions of people need aid.
03:38While the fighting has slowed, the crisis has worsened.
03:41Decimated infrastructure, economic collapse, and limited global attention mean that suffering continues.
03:47Without international urgency, its people will keep suffering in silence.
03:52Under the Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law, they have responsibilities.
03:56And the responsibilities are to protect civilians and avoid the sort of damage that takes place to structure and to people's lives.
04:03Winterstorm Uri.
04:04At the peak of the winter storm, more than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power.
04:10Texas expected some cold.
04:12What it received was a full-fledged crisis.
04:14In February 2021, winter storm Uri slammed the southern U.S. with freezing temperatures and snow.
04:21The result was a terrible reminder that nowhere is safe from the many faces of climate change.
04:27Texas' independent electrical grid collapsed under demand.
04:31Over 4.5 million people were left without power.
04:34Water pipes froze.
04:35Hospitals were overwhelmed.
04:37Dozens died from hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning, or fires started to keep warm.
04:43Isolated to avoid a federal regulation, Texas' grid became its greatest vulnerability.
04:49It gave new meaning to the term first responder.
04:53Those helping, also living it.
04:55It was the most stressful thing of my life, and I'm a 35-year battalion chief of the Austin Fire Department.
04:59Uri was a brutal wake-up call.
05:01Climate change is making extreme weather more common in every season.
05:05Outdated infrastructure is no match.
05:08In the world's richest nation, people froze in their own homes.
05:12In the months to come, many aftereffects of the storm lingered, along with the memory of those lost.
05:18Sargassum seaweed in the Caribbean.
05:2138 million metric tons of the sargassum seaweed, a brown, prickly algae, has been smothering Caribbean shorelines over the last month.
05:30It looks like seaweed.
05:32It smells like hell.
05:33Giant floating mats of Atlantic brown algae, sargassum, are overwhelming Caribbean coastlines.
05:40In 2023, the seaweed bloom reached record size, stretching over 5,000 miles.
05:46Climate change is partly to blame.
05:48Warmer oceans and agricultural runoff supercharge its growth.
05:52Once ashore, sargassum rots and releases hydrogen sulfide gas, triggering respiratory issues and ruining beaches.
05:59Jose Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican fisherman.
06:02He says business has been hit hard.
06:05It clogs fishing nets, kills marine life by deoxygenating water, and chokes coral reefs.
06:12Caribbean tourism, a vital industry, has taken a body blow.
06:16Locals now battle the stuff with bulldozers and hazmat suits.
06:20Scientists say this might be the new normal, a slow-moving ecological and economic disaster.
06:26Our oceans are record hot.
06:28Our air is record hot that that's just essentially fuel food for this seaweed, which is really a type of brown algae to grow much bigger than ever.
06:36The DRC disaster.
06:38The Democratic Republic of Congo is known for two things.
06:42Vast mineral wealth and endless human misery.
06:45Since 2022, the crisis in eastern DRC has spiraled into one of the world's most ongoing disasters.
06:52Some 7 million people are now displaced.
06:55Armed groups like M23 have resurged, with Rwanda accused of backing them.
07:00Troops from southern Africa and UN peacekeepers have failed to stop the pro-Rwandan forces' advance.
07:06Civilians have been slaughtered.
07:08Sexual assault is rampant.
07:10Children are conscripted into child militias.
07:13Peace talks keep stalling, while regional power plays fan the flames.
07:18Meanwhile, cobalt and coltan, critical for smartphones and EVs, flow out of conflict zones.
07:25The world relies on Congo's resources, but ignores its suffering.
07:28Without a direct threat to smartphone supply, it's hard to know when the world will pay attention.
07:33Worldwide coral bleaching.
07:36An ocean that's too hot, by even just a couple degrees, could change everything.
07:42Coral reefs are the rainforests of the sea.
07:45They are vital ecosystems that support a quarter of marine life.
07:48They're also dying.
07:50In 2023, NOAA confirmed the fourth global coral bleaching event in recorded history.
07:55Triggered by record-breaking ocean heat, the crisis has already impacted reefs in over 50 countries.
08:01Bleaching doesn't mean instant death, but it strips corals of their algae lifeline.
08:06They turn ghost white, and are vulnerable to heat stress.
08:09You can actually see a bleached reef from kilometers away, because it virtually glows.
08:15There's so much white coral on it.
08:17This is the largest event ever recorded, worse than the previous wave a decade before.
08:22Scientists fear we're watching a planetary lung collapse in slow motion.
08:26Coral die-offs ripple into tourism, food chains, and coastal protection.
08:31Without urgent climate action, reefs may become relics of a lost world.
08:36Scientists and ecologists like myself have been talking for decades now about global warming.
08:43And it has been frustrating that we haven't been listened to.
08:48The wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
08:51Four months after the messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,
08:54a mix of sanctions, drought, and terrorism has brought Afghanistan once again to the brink of collapse.
08:59After two decades of war, President Trump's treaty bound President Biden to pull out of Afghanistan.
09:06But the exodus was pure chaos.
09:08The Taliban surged back to power within days.
09:11They swept across the country, much faster than intelligence agencies had predicted.
09:16Foreign aid from the U.S., Europe, and others that kept the country afloat has largely been frozen.
09:22Kabul's fall sparked a desperate evacuation.
09:24Images of people clinging to departing planes led headlines around the globe.
09:30Tens of thousands of Afghans stormed onto the runways, desperate to leave.
09:35Clinging onto aircraft, trying not to be left behind as the Americans pull out.
09:39But the long-term fallout has been even darker and mostly ignored.
09:43Millions now live under renewed authoritarian rule.
09:47Education for girls has been gutted.
09:49Food insecurity and poverty have skyrocketed.
09:52Millions of Afghans rely on humanitarian aid just to survive.
09:56The withdrawal may have ended a war, but it left a vacuum.
10:00It was filled by fear, famine, and repression.
10:04Syrian health crisis.
10:06The health care system, as you said, is decimated through years of neglect
10:10and years of basically total decimation of the health care infrastructure.
10:20Syria's civil war unleashed a wave of death and destruction across the country.
10:25Critical infrastructure was wiped out, shattering the nation's health care.
10:28Since 2011, hundreds of hospitals and clinics have been destroyed.
10:33Doctors were targeted.
10:34And vaccines vanished.
10:36The main problem is, after many years of dictatorship, civil societies have not been able to develop.
10:45Millions were displaced, often into overcrowded camps with minimal sanitation.
10:50Clean water became a luxury.
10:52Diseases like polio, once under control, made deadly comebacks.
10:56Surgeries are performed without anesthesia.
10:59Mental health needs skyrocketed with no support.
11:02Vast numbers of Syria's population needed humanitarian aid.
11:06But with the world's attention shifting elsewhere,
11:08Syria's suffering rarely makes headlines.
11:11It's a quiet emergency that keeps taking lives long after the bombs fell.
11:16Only 25% of the aid need is currently being met.
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11:37Global drought-induced hunger crisis.
11:39The last two years, Earth has endured some of the most widespread and destructive droughts ever recorded.
11:45Droughts have become silent killers, sparking hunger crises worldwide.
11:50In East Africa, Ethiopia and Somalia have suffered devastating crop failures in recent years.
11:56Millions have been left without food and water.
11:58Across the globe, heat waves and drought have decimated crops, especially in India and the Horn of Africa.
12:06In Somalia alone, drought has driven over 7 million people into severe food insecurity.
12:11Meanwhile, South America faces its own nightmare, a mega-drought.
12:16Countries like Brazil and Argentina have had bone-dry forests igniting into multi-state wildfires.
12:23The domino of drought, failed harvests, and starvation spans continents.
12:28Climate change has only exacerbated the problem.
12:31In 2023, the World Food Programme listed 10 countries teetering on famine.
12:35Drought is the leading cause.
12:38Tens of millions are at risk.
12:40Unless reversed, this could become the worst hunger disaster in modern history.
12:45These stories don't get nearly enough attention, but should.
12:48Which moment hits you hardest?
12:50Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
12:51Call us bleach when the waters around them get too warm.
12:55Something that's happening with increasing frequency and intensity as a consequence of global warming.
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