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00:00History is full of killer stories, people, places, and events so lethal, so downright shocking, that we just can't forget them.
00:21Tonight, imagine an earthquake so strong, it ends up setting Tokyo on fire.
00:31People's feet are getting stuck in this burning, hot, sticky sludge of asphalt.
00:37Or a lightning bolt that unleashes hell on earth.
00:42You have this flaming tsunami headed right for the town of Drunk.
00:46What about a volcanic eruption so powerful it buries a village under tons of mud?
00:55When it erupts, it sends about 35 million tons of ash 20 miles high into the atmosphere.
01:03These are the natural disasters so devastating they can only be among history's deadliest.
01:16Earth, water, fire, wind.
01:22For centuries, the world believed these elements were the building blocks of nature.
01:27But what happens when all these elements collide at once?
01:36It's the middle of the day, September 1st, 1923, in Yokohama, Japan.
01:42And many people are home for lunch.
01:44People along the shore and on land hear this tremendous, loud rumble.
01:50It almost sounds like thunder.
01:53That sound isn't thunder.
01:56It's an earthquake.
01:58And it's hitting Japan in the Kanto region, which is home to two densely populated cities, Yokohama and Tokyo.
02:06This is a magnitude 7.9 earthquake.
02:11The ground doesn't just shake for a few seconds.
02:14No, it shakes for four to ten minutes.
02:17The impact is immediate and terrifying.
02:21Buildings along the waterfront begin to collapse.
02:24The pier falls apart.
02:27It is utter mayhem.
02:28All of Yokohama is reduced to waste.
02:32And half of Tokyo is brought down to rumble.
02:35But the quake itself is just the beginning.
02:38As the earth shakes, people's cooking fires are dislodged and knocked around.
02:44And suddenly, their houses catch fire.
02:47These buildings are made of paper and wood, traditional Japanese construction.
02:54And soon, entire houses, entire blocks, entire neighborhoods are completely engulfed.
03:01Then, as thousands of homes burn, the earthquake unleashes new horrors.
03:08Just a few minutes after the earthquake, a 40-foot tsunami wave strikes the city of Atami on Sagami Gulf.
03:16In comparison to Tokyo and Yokohama, the numbers aren't as extreme.
03:25But still, in this small town, 150 buildings are destroyed.
03:3160 people lose their lives.
03:33Up in the mountains, you have these landslides triggered by the earthquake.
03:38And it hits a train station.
03:40It takes out a train.
03:42It takes out part of the town.
03:44And it throws it all into the ocean.
03:46Ending the lives of 112 people.
03:50Adding to the absolute mayhem, Mother Nature next launches hurricane winds.
03:57There's a typhoon.
03:58And this sends tremendous winds into the Kanto region that whips up these individual fires into a firestorm.
04:08The fire creates its old, strong winds as hot air is rising and more air is drawn in.
04:14That rising heat from these intense fires creates a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, basically a tornado made of fire created by the fire itself.
04:24It is burning so hot, it actually burns the asphalt that's on the roads.
04:30So as people are trying to escape and get to safety, they're getting stuck in this melting, gooey asphalt.
04:3738,000 people take refuge from the earthquake in an old military facility in Tokyo.
04:45This facility has huge open areas and the people here think that they'll be safe from any falling debris.
04:52But the problem is that all the fires are still raging throughout Tokyo, and this fire whirl ends up coming through this area and sets fire to all the buildings that are around everybody.
05:02Their refuge becomes their cemetery.
05:09And between the quake, the fire, landslides, the casualties from the Kanto event are utterly devastating.
05:18There's 140,000 people that lose their lives.
05:21There's 100,000 that are injured.
05:23And another 1.5 million people lose their homes.
05:27The devastation is almost unimaginable, but it doesn't stop here.
05:35Japan and Korea have long had a troubled relationship.
05:39The Japanese people want somebody to blame, and their targets are the Korean people.
05:45So the rumors begin to fly.
05:47They claim that the Koreans were the ones who started the fires.
05:52It's so crazy that some even blame the Koreans for the earthquake itself.
05:55This sets the stage for the Kanto Massacre.
05:59Vigilante mobs go around hunting down and killing any ethnic Korean they can find.
06:06The massacre claims another 6,000 lives, maybe even more.
06:14The 1923 earthquake in Japan is remembered as one of history's worst natural disasters.
06:21700 years earlier, another stunning event has its own devastating death toll.
06:28In the late 13th century, the Mongol Empire is the largest contiguous empire in the world,
06:37controlling vast swaths of Eurasia.
06:40They are ruled by the notorious Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan.
06:46Kublai considers himself the god-king of the entire known universe,
06:51and his unwavering goal is to unite the entire world under his blood-soaked banner.
06:59In 1266, Kublai sets his sights on conquering Japan.
07:04He amasses a large fleet of as many as 900 vessels and more than 30,000 troops.
07:12The fleet sets sail in early autumn of 1274, but when they reach the mainland at Hakata Bay,
07:20there's a massive army of Japanese samurai ready to greet them.
07:24But eventually, the Mongol forces overwhelm the Japanese.
07:29So ultimately, when the Japanese samurai retreat, the Mongols take this as a time to regroup,
07:36and they go back to their ships that are waiting in the bay.
07:38And that turns out to be a very bad idea.
07:43A once-in-a-century typhoon hits the Mongol fleet and tears it apart.
07:49Giant waves, 200 ships are churned into matchwood and sink to the bottom of the sea.
07:58Of the invasion force of at least 30,000 men, sources say something like 13,500 don't return.
08:06The disaster makes Kublai Khan even more determined than ever.
08:13Seven years later, in 1281, he launches a second, bigger invasion.
08:19He sends 4,000 ships and 100,000 soldiers to finish the job.
08:25But once again, Kublai and his generals have underestimated the Japanese.
08:31Japan has been preparing.
08:33They have been fortifying their defenses.
08:35After weeks of torturous fighting, the invasion is at a stalemate.
08:41No end in sight.
08:42On the night of August 15th, the entire Mongol fleet is anchored off the coast of Japan when another typhoon hits.
08:50They've latched their ships together in this tight formation to protect themselves against nightly samurai guerrilla attacks.
09:00Because all the ships are lashed together, they can't escape the typhoon.
09:04There's nowhere for them to go.
09:06This typhoon obliterates the Mongol fleet.
09:14The Mongol army are wearing this armor made of heavy metal plates.
09:21So once their ships are torn apart from under them, they're headed straight to the bottom.
09:26The soldiers that don't drown are washed ashore where they are greeted by samurai warriors who promptly behead them on the spot.
09:37The heads of high-ranking Mongols are put on display for all to see.
09:40After being twice saved by typhoons, the Japanese reason that these divine winds have a deeper meaning.
09:49And that is the Japanese homeland can never be invaded and the Japanese military can never be defeated.
09:56They even create a new word to describe the phenomenon.
09:59The first half is kami, meaning God.
10:02The second half, kazi, meaning wind.
10:05You put them together, you get kamikaze.
10:08The Mongols lose half their fighting force, 50,000 men and thousands of their ships.
10:14It is one of the greatest natural disasters in history.
10:23American southern coastline is used to hurricanes.
10:27One hits almost every year.
10:29But when most of us think of powerful storms, there's just one name that comes to mind.
10:38Hurricane Katrina is one of the worst hurricanes that we can remember in modern times.
10:47That came into an area that really couldn't afford to be hit.
10:51The entire city is underwater.
10:54And 1,800 people are killed.
10:56But Katrina is not even close when it comes to the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
11:04That event takes place almost a century earlier in Texas.
11:09At the end of the 19th century, Galveston, Texas is a boomtown.
11:15It's considered the Wall Street of the Southwest.
11:20Galveston is just nine feet above sea level and in an area prone to storms and high winds.
11:27That's a dangerous place to be.
11:2914 years before, a massive Category 4 hurricane hits Indianola, Texas.
11:36And this rattles the people of Galveston because they take a look at this and say,
11:40hey, do we need to protect ourselves?
11:42But Isaac Klein, the head of the Weather Bureau in Galveston, claims that it's an absurd delusion
11:50to believe that a hurricane would ever hit Galveston.
11:55Klein is about to be proven tragically wrong.
11:59The morning of September 8th, 1900, people are walking around and they notice that the waves
12:05coming onto shore are a little bit different.
12:08They're a little bit bigger.
12:09They're a little stronger.
12:10They're coming more frequently.
12:12What nobody in Galveston except Isaac Klein knows is that four days earlier,
12:17a weather station in Cuba detects a strengthening tropical storm.
12:20And they issue a warning to the U.S. Weather Bureau stating that they believe this is going to hit Texas.
12:27Klein completely ignores what they have to say.
12:31But Isaac Klein is starting to notice these darker clouds and this rain is starting to roll in.
12:37And these waves starting to hit the coast of Galveston and all of this water starts making it onto the streets.
12:45At that point, Isaac Klein does a complete 180.
12:49Not only does he know that there's a hurricane coming, he believes it's going to be a bad one.
12:54So Isaac Klein decides to fly the storm warning flags.
12:58But don't forget that this is the guy saying that Galveston was impervious to having a hurricane impact them.
13:02So even though the warning flags are out, people are not paying attention.
13:06And then it hits.
13:09In the afternoon, waves build higher.
13:13The wind picks up.
13:15Buildings on the shore get knocked down.
13:18At 3.30 p.m., Klein cables with the U.S. Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C. saying that half the city is now underwater.
13:29At 8 p.m., you have a 15-foot storm surge that is inundating Galveston, which, don't forget, is at max 9 feet high above sea level.
13:38Now they're seeing winds ramp up to about 120 miles an hour.
13:41It's literally tearing bricks off of buildings.
13:46These are becoming deadly projectiles, taking out people.
13:50And buildings literally blow apart.
13:54In the blink of an eye, 20% of Galveston's population, which is about 8,000 people, are dead.
14:01Ground in flooding, crushed by debris, or they die while waiting to be rescued.
14:07There are so many dead that burying them is impossible.
14:12But what makes it even worse is that the storm has exhumed coffins, and the more recent dead are mingled with those who have just died.
14:23So all that's left to do is to pile them up on huge funeral pyres and burn them.
14:30And it takes days.
14:32The Galveston hurricane claimed more than 8,000 lives.
14:39Seventy years later, another failed warning system makes a bad disaster much worse.
14:48In 1970, Bangladesh is known as East Pakistan, and it's one of the most remote parts of the world.
14:57The only immediate source of information is shortwave radio.
15:02If you do have a working radio, on November 12, 1970, you hear a repeated broadcast over and over.
15:10Red 4. Red 4.
15:14Although the region is known for deadly cyclones, most local people simply dismiss the warning due to a tragic mistake.
15:23In 1960, a cyclone hits the Ganges Delta that kills hundreds of people.
15:29At that time, East Pakistan is using a storm warning system on a 10-point scale, with 10 indicating the most dangerous and destructive cyclones that will hit.
15:40And the government decides to work with the United States' National Hurricane Center.
15:45And they come up with a new scale that goes from 1 to 4.
15:50The problem?
15:52No one bothers to spread the word in East Pakistan.
15:56On this new scale, Red 4 means red alert.
16:00Catastrophic, destruction imminent.
16:02Seek higher ground immediately.
16:04So when people hear Red 4, they harken back to the 10-point system.
16:10And they think that this means a mild cyclone is coming.
16:13It's only 4 out of 10.
16:14But in reality, they've got a Category 4 monster bearing down on them.
16:19By the time the residents of East Pakistan's low-lying islands realize that there's something catastrophic happening, it's too late.
16:27Water is already pushing further and further inland.
16:30As the cyclone races north across the Bay of Bengal, it brings 138-mile-per-hour winds and a storm surge three stories tall.
16:41The cyclone makes landfall on the evening of November 12th.
16:46The cyclone, in the course of 24 hours, completely dismantles the Ganges Delta.
16:50It really is hard to describe what it's like to be in wind speeds this strong.
16:57The air starts to act more like a solid than a gas.
17:02You have difficulty breathing.
17:03You can't even stand up in.
17:05The buildings that people are seeking shelter in essentially become tombs.
17:12They get drowned by the rising water.
17:14This storm surge wipes complete islands off the map along with all the inhabitants of the area.
17:22There are some incredible stories of survival.
17:26People survive for days by hanging on to the tops of palm trees as water rages below them.
17:32What happens after the cyclone is even worse.
17:39Diseases like cholera and typhus rage in the aftermath and send the death toll skyrocketing.
17:46The bola cyclone kills somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 people.
17:52This is not just the world's deadliest cyclone in history.
17:56It's one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, bar none.
18:02They say lightning never strikes twice.
18:07But once is all it takes if it strikes in the wrong place.
18:11That's exactly what happens in Egypt in 1994.
18:17Upper Egypt gets hit with a severe thunderstorm.
18:23233 miles from Cairo, the heaviest rains in almost 50 years cause flash flooding
18:28that threaten not only some of Egypt's most valuable archaeological treasures,
18:33but dozens of smaller villages.
18:38Egypt is one of the driest places on the planet.
18:42It's mostly arid desert.
18:45These arid conditions are perfect for preserving ancient monuments.
18:50But when heavy rains do show up, they can cause widespread devastation.
18:57Flash flooding actually happens fairly frequently.
19:00The water does not permeate the sand.
19:03It stays on top of it, and it keeps going, and it takes the sand with it.
19:09And on November 3rd, 1994, these floodwaters set off a bizarre and deadly chain of events.
19:21Just north of the town of Dronka, the Egyptian army has a fuel depot.
19:25It's home to tanks that contain over 40,000 tons of jet and diesel fuel.
19:31The depot doesn't have standard fail-safes like protective walls and safety confinement systems.
19:36Around 6.30 in the morning, the flash floods that have now hit that depot damage about three of those tanks,
19:42and those tanks start to leak.
19:43In a coincidence so perfectly timed, it defies belief, a bolt of lightning strikes the depot at exactly the same moment as the flood damages the tanks.
19:55The leaking fuel tanks explode, sending flame and black smoke shooting into the air.
20:04Because oil and water don't mix, the jet and diesel fuel float on top of the floodwaters.
20:10The lightning strike ignites the fuel, turning it into a flaming river of destruction.
20:15The 10,000 residents of the nearby village of Dronka are about to experience horror.
20:24The people of Dronka are awoken by the sounds of a massive explosion, and then huge clouds of black smoke engulfing the town.
20:33Survivors tell stories of flame-capped waves bursting into their homes and killing their loved ones.
20:43Of course, thousands of people fleeing their homes clog the roads, preventing firefighters from getting to the scene.
20:51The fire burns for 12 hours before being extinguished.
20:54The Egyptian flooding of 1994 destroys 22,000 homes and leaves over 110,000 people homeless.
21:10But the devastation in Dronka is the worst.
21:14469 people die there.
21:16The World Meteorological Organization says the Dronka disaster is the highest mortality event ever caused by a lightning strike.
21:25So, while it may not have been the lightning itself that killed the people, lightning still bears the blame for all those deadly events.
21:36It took just one lightning strike to kill 469 people in Dronka.
21:42Decades before, one of the world's busiest ports is just as unlucky.
21:48This time, residents do get an alert, but not soon enough.
21:56By the late 19th century, telegraph networks have spanned the globe.
22:01It allows people to share meteorological data from thousands upon thousands of miles away in just a matter of minutes.
22:10One city that's part of this new weather network, the jewel of the British colonies, Hong Kong.
22:19Everything about Hong Kong is about making money.
22:21It's one of the busiest and wealthiest ports in the world.
22:24The entire port is filled at this point with the British Navy, with cargo steamers from all over the globe.
22:32Ferries going back and forth between the mainland.
22:35The harbor is also the literal home of the Dronka, an ancient cast of Chinese people who live in floating fishing villages.
22:43In 1906, there are over 5,000 registered Chinese fishing ships in Hong Kong.
22:49You also have thousands of unregistered Tonka junks and sandpans.
22:54There's as much of a community living on the water as is ashore.
22:58When a typhoon nearly wipes Hong Kong off the map in 1874, the British set to work creating one of the first early weather warning systems.
23:10The early warning system changes over time, and by 1906, it has become refined.
23:17The weather observatory has a system of three-dimensional black symbols.
23:23Each one constitutes a different meaning.
23:26The black drum is the symbol indicating that a typhoon is 300 miles or less away.
23:33That means that all the boats in the harbor and that are very near out at sea need to take evasive actions.
23:39Hong Kong also has a typhoon gun, basically a big cannon.
23:43If it's fired once, strong winds are to be expected.
23:46If it's fired twice, look out for a typhoon.
23:50Bottom line, batten down the hatches.
23:52On September 18th, 1906, Hong Kong's early warning system isn't early enough.
24:02The weather forecast from the Royal Observatory calls for moderate winds and showers.
24:08So at 8 a.m., everyone is quite confused when the black drum is raised.
24:12Meaning a typhoon is 300 miles or less away.
24:16Just 40 minutes later, the typhoon gun booms not once but twice.
24:20But it's too little too late.
24:22The hurricane force winds have already begun to batter Hong Kong.
24:28Hong Kong's mainland suffers its share of destruction.
24:31But the typhoon saves most of its wrath for the packed harbors and fishing villages.
24:39Enormous ships are being tossed around like toy boats in a bathtub.
24:43The German steamer Petrarch, which weighs 1,700 tons, is picked up and put down on top of two smaller ships.
24:50Then the whole mangled mess just crashes into the main wharf, demolishing everything.
24:55There's about 3,000 registered Chinese fishing vessels that are taken out by this storm.
25:04And the Tonka boats? Totally obliterated.
25:08Survivors struggle to describe the scale of the destruction.
25:12It's reported with hyperbole that Hong Kong harbor is so clogged with debris, wreckage, and bodies that you can walk over it.
25:21At least 10,000 people die from the 1906 Hong Kong typhoon.
25:28But later estimates go as high as 16,000.
25:32Epic disasters like this one remind us that as smart as we are, as prepared as we think we are,
25:41the power of nature can strip every bit of that away.
25:46Christmas Eve, 1953.
25:53It's a glad night with no rain.
25:55And the New Zealand postal worker is about to witness a deadly natural disaster.
26:06The levels of water are really high, 20-odd feet and moving rapidly.
26:11Postal worker, Cyril Ellis, comes across a bridge and it appears to be washed out.
26:18He sees the light of a locomotive coming in his direction.
26:25The night express from Wellington to Auckland passes through Tangiwai.
26:30There are 285 people on board.
26:33As the train approaches the bridge crossing the river, something spooks the engineer.
26:38It might just be Cyril Ellis signaling for the train to slow down.
26:42The engineer, Charles Parker, pulls the emergency brake.
26:46But it takes up to a mile to come to a complete stop.
26:51As the train begins to cross the bridge, it begins to buckle.
26:55The engine and first five passenger cars are sent plummeting into a rushing flood of mud and debris.
27:03The sixth car is left teetering off the edge of the bridge and remaining cars are still safely on the track.
27:13Cyril Ellis teams up with the train guard and they climb into the sixth car to try and rescue people.
27:18But as soon as they do, that car goes plunging into the river.
27:25Amazingly, not only do Ellis and the guard survive the fall,
27:28but they're also able to break out the windows and evacuate people out the side of the carriage car.
27:33Somehow, they save 21 out of 22 people out of car number six.
27:37But the people in the first five cars aren't as lucky.
27:43There are a little more than 160 passengers riding in the carriages that go over the bridge and almost all of them die.
27:50Even though many of the passengers survive the initial fall, they end up drowning in the muddy silt of the river.
27:59Many of the bodies are unrecognizable.
28:02As the thick sludge subsides, the question on everyone's mind is, where did it come from in the first place?
28:13Attention soon turns to a nearby mountain, one with an active volcano.
28:20Mount Ruapehu is an iconic volcano in the North Island of New Zealand.
28:24At the summit, between its peaks, is this deep crater lake, and it will sometimes fill up with water and ash and other debris.
28:34All this material is kept in place by a tephra dam, which is basically a natural dam made of cooled lava.
28:41In December of 1953, this crater lake holds 70 million cubic feet of water and debris.
28:49When that tephra dam breaks, a phenomenon known as a lahar is occurring.
28:54It's basically a high-speed flash flood, but it's water filled with volcanic ash and mud, rocks, and debris.
29:04When this 20-foot-deep lahar hits the train trestle, it dislodges one of the four piers that anchor the bridge,
29:14so it can no longer support the weight of a moving train.
29:17The grimmest kicker of this whole ordeal is that the lahar hits the trestle just six minutes before the train crosses the bridge.
29:29If it hits ten minutes later, that train makes the crossing.
29:33Nobody dies.
29:34The New Zealand lahar just takes out a bridge.
29:44In 1985, when a Colombian volcano blows, it creates a mud flow 160 feet wide.
29:52Novaro del Ruiz is a very active volcano in Colombia.
29:59It's 17,000 feet to the summit, which is under a permanent ice cap.
30:03We're talking huge glaciers and snowfall year-round.
30:08Ruiz is experiencing some low level of volcanic activity most of the time.
30:13But on September 13th, 1985, it has a big eruption.
30:22When it erupts, it sends about 35 million tons of ash 20 miles high into the atmosphere.
30:30One of the most dangerous combinations, a volcanic eruption and a glaciated peak.
30:36These thick glaciers, these masses of ice, melt very quickly when there's a hot eruption of lava and ash.
30:44And it creates not one, not two, but four individual lahars, a melted water, magma, ash mixture moving at immense speed.
30:56When these lahars go rushing down the mountainside and hit some of the existing rivers in the valley below,
31:02they swell exponentially to four times their regular size.
31:06The volcano erupts at 9.09 p.m.
31:10By 11.30 p.m., about two and a half hours later, the lahar hits the town of Armero.
31:16And it is immediately wiped from the face of the earth.
31:20Over three quarters of its population perished in the first onslaught.
31:25A second lahar follows that lasts about 30 minutes.
31:29And a third smaller one occurs, but this one lasts for almost two hours.
31:36It takes the rescuers over 12 hours to reach the survivors in Armero.
31:42And when they get there, it's a horror show.
31:44The place is completely unrecognizable.
31:47Buildings destroyed, washed away.
31:49Literally bodies everywhere.
31:52Amazingly, there are some survivors, but they're caught in the rubble, buried beneath the rubble, glued beneath the rubble.
31:59The final official death toll from the eruption is 22,000, with 21,000 of them being from Armero alone.
32:15It's the second deadliest volcanic eruption in the 20th century.
32:20Natural disasters usually get lots of attention.
32:29But one of the worst in American history isn't even the top story of its day.
32:36It's 1871, and Chicago is one of the world's largest lumber trade markets.
32:42And a lot of that lumber comes from a town 200 miles away called Peshtigo, Wisconsin.
32:48On October 8, 1871, you have a bunch of factors that are going to lead to a horrific natural disaster.
32:58First up is a severe drought.
32:59It's lasted throughout the summer and has dried out the local vegetation.
33:04High winds gust across the region.
33:06You combine this with warm temperatures and dry conditions, and you have set the stage for a large-scale fire.
33:11There is no clear answer how the Peshtigo fire starts.
33:17People theorize that what happens next could have been due to sparks from a passing train.
33:22It could have been due to a controlled burn that got out of hand.
33:25Some theorize that it was a lightning strike.
33:29That night, the sky fills with an orange glow, and the people of Peshtigo hear a roaring noise like a freight train.
33:36It's a firestorm, and it's coming for them.
33:40There's no warning, no time to process what's happening before it's already on them.
33:46A wall of flame bursts onto the town.
33:49High winds push people to the ground.
33:52All of this instantly renders the air unbreathable.
33:55People are blinded.
33:56The Peshtigo fire forms in a dry, densely packed forest, rich with fuel.
34:04High winds suck the heat upwards, increasing the intensity.
34:08It erupts onto Peshtigo like a bomb, incinerating all the wooden buildings, the streets, and the sidewalks.
34:18Many people die instantly.
34:20It's surreal.
34:21People's hair and clothing burst into flames on their bodies.
34:27Because these winds are kicking up at such high rates of speed, swirls of fire then grow into these massive funnels,
34:33and they're not just burning people, but they're also picking them up and tossing them like ragdolls.
34:40Hundreds of people and animals make a beeline for the Peshtigo River.
34:45Some of them are burned to death, just feet from the water.
34:48A bridge packed with people collapses, sending them plummeting into the river, and many of them drown.
34:56One grim anecdote claims a local man slits the throats of his family to spare them an agonizing death.
35:08The firestorm burns itself out by morning, and there's almost nothing left.
35:14Survivors coated in ash and mud can barely recognize each other.
35:20Many have severe burns and suffer from temporary blindness brought on by prolonged exposure to smoke.
35:27Sand has been melted into glass.
35:31The grisly carbonized remains of the firestorm's victims litter the town.
35:35The Peshtigo Fire burns more than 1.2 million acres right to the ground.
35:40Half of Peshtigo's population dies.
35:44The fire also destroys 16 other smaller communities.
35:48The total death toll may be upwards of 2,500 people,
35:52but it's impossible to know because town records are incinerated along with their buildings.
35:57It is the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history.
35:59If the Peshtigo Fire is the deadliest in U.S. history, how come more people don't know about it?
36:09On the same day, 200 miles away in Chicago, the Great Chicago Fire breaks out.
36:17It will burn 2,000 acres of the city and leave 30% of the population homeless.
36:22Instantly, the attention turns to this disaster in Chicago, one of America's most bustling cities.
36:30News outlets cover this from around the world.
36:32Aid flows in.
36:33All the attention is on Chicago.
36:36Meanwhile, the residents of Peshtigo are sitting in the smoking embers of their town.
36:41All the telegraph lines have been destroyed.
36:44So no one even knows about this fire for two days.
36:48And for much of its history, the Peshtigo Fire has been pretty much overlooked because of the Great Chicago Fire,
36:56which really doesn't compare in terms of damage and loss of life.
37:03The United States holds many records, including First in Flight and First Man on the Moon.
37:10The one record nobody's bragging about?
37:12Having more tornadoes than anywhere else.
37:16In 1925, one of them lays waste to three states.
37:27Tornadoes can form in lots of different ways.
37:30We get them in thunderstorms.
37:31We see them in hurricanes and typhoons from time to time.
37:34But typically, most tornadoes happen in what's called supercell thunderstorms.
37:37These happen when you have warm, humid air meet really cold, dry air.
37:41And in these rotating thunderstorms, you get tornadoes that can be produced.
37:46And the supercell thunderstorm tornadoes are the most dangerous ones out there.
37:51On March 18, 1925, the South Central United States is slammed with a dozen tornadoes, all at the same time.
38:02Separate twisters run rampant across Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama, as well as Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas.
38:10And while these twisters all cause their fair share of damage, they're nothing compared to the tri-state tornado.
38:17One thing that makes a tornado like this so dangerous is that unlike places like Oklahoma and Kansas, where it's perfectly flat, in Missouri and Illinois and Indiana, you've got trees and hills that obscure the horizon.
38:33Even if the tornado is bearing down on you, you might not even see it until the last minute.
38:38This isn't a tornado that sticks around for 30 or 40 minutes.
38:41This one sticks around for three and a half hours and cuts a swath of destruction that is 219 miles long.
38:55Residents of Ellington, Missouri know the warning signs for a tornado.
39:00They experience these conditions frequently.
39:02But on this day, they notice like an eerie smoky fog instead.
39:06And so it doesn't send the bells and whistles off in their head that, hey, a tornado is approaching.
39:12It's not just a tornado.
39:14This thing is an F5 tornado, rated the highest level on the Fujita scale.
39:21A tornado this strong can have wind speeds up to over 300 miles an hour.
39:27It can lift up a train with its tracks and chuck them into a farmer's field.
39:31And the one that touches down outside Ellington is a mile and a half wide with winds that reach 300 miles per hour.
39:41Towns in Missouri and Illinois are completely wiped off the map and some small mining towns are completely destroyed.
39:48There's a man in Griffin, Indiana who is in his house and he's holding on to his front door for dear life because he does not want this door to be blown open and have everything sucked out of his house.
40:00The noise is unimaginable.
40:02There's shaking, there's rattling, and he's just praying that everything's going to be okay.
40:08The tornado ends up blowing away the rest of his house from around him.
40:13And he's just left with the door handle, the front door, and the frame.
40:18After the tornado passes, fires start to break out.
40:27And not only are people killed by the tornado, but people die in the fires.
40:33By the time the tri-state tornado is over, it has set a number of grim records.
40:40The 219-mile track the tornado carves across three different states is the longest ever on record.
40:45It's killed 695 people, many of them women and children, mainly because the men were working underground in the coal mines.
40:54This makes it the deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
40:59Today, modern technology allows us to track natural disasters, but no one controls Mother Nature.
41:07Nobody knows where or when she'll strike, or which events will rank among history's deadliest.
41:16The rest of the tornadoes are perfect.
41:16The forces that work from הרhanded uninter baking today may be allowed into Lks.
41:26Today was the final for years on Lks.
41:30The land of the world named Lks.
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