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From a river more dangerous than the Amazon to an island ruled by deadly snakes, some locations on Earth pose extreme risks to human safety. Explore the most perilous destinations on the planet, where nature's threats make survival a real challenge.
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00:02Now, of course you know that the Amazon River is famous for its piranhas, bull sharks, and other creatures you
00:09don'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
00:26-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,
00:38and 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
00:53breed with each other.
00:55One of the most dangerous types of fish living here is the goliath tigerfish.
00:59These monsters that grow up to 5 feet and travel at the speed of 25 miles per hour are relatives
01:05of 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
01:22attacked 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
01:42with up to 2,000 people and capsize every now and then.
01:46And if you believe the local folklore, there's one more thing to be afraid of, the one who stops the
01:53flow of the rivers, a dinosaur-like beast that is said to live in the Congo River Basin.
01:58There have been over a hundred sightings over the last century, but no one can provide solid evidence the beast
02:05is real.
02:08At the turn of the 21st century, there was a series of terrible, mysterious stories on the Kali River in
02:14Asia.
02:14Something 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.
02:48The 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.
03:07Some of them were human-sized.
03:09They 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 three times the weight of an average gaunch.
03:22It was large enough to take down a human or a large animal,
03:25but 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.
03:39It'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.
03:49The river is the only home to a rare Orinoco crocodile and has some pretty scary-looking vampire fish swimming
03:56around.
03:57This payara fish has sharp, spiky daggers that line their gums and two elongated fangs that rise from their lower
04:05jaws.
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
04:15fish.
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.
04:25Well, that's good.
04:28The Yellow River in China received this 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.
04:49This 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, as the riverbed was higher than the
05:18surrounding 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.
05:43There are 30 to 60 species of these scary fish in the Piranha waters.
05:47In 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, but it's still considered one of the most audacious piranha attacks
06:04ever recorded.
06:06Biologists later determined that the type of piranhas, called palomates, was to blame for this.
06:13The 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.
06:28The 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, and no one still knows for sure where this mighty river begins.
06:42Adding 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, which is slightly more
07:06than the height of an average giraffe.
07:09These bad guys can reach a speed of 30 miles per hour on land and take the lives of a
07:14couple 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, as they carry around all sorts of diseases
07:32that 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, causing landslides, displacing millions of people, and taking
07:50the lives of hundreds of animals in the nearby national parks.
07:53Such floods are also common during the monsoon season in India, from June to October, with heavy rains.
08:00The 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, it is still the reason a lot of people lose their
08:19land and get displaced.
08:20The 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 where a river empties into an ocean
08:32or sea.
08:32And there you have it.
08:39There's a beautiful island in the Atlantic Ocean, 25 miles off the coast of Brazil.
08:44It's easy to reach, has an endless beach line, steep rocks to climb, and vibrant tropical greenery.
08:51Yet there isn't a single hotel here.
08:54No one's hiking on all those rocks.
08:56No one's watching sunsets by the ocean.
08:58And you'll never see kids build sandcastles on the beach.
09:01People left this island a long time ago and will unlikely ever come back to live here.
09:07It's been long since taken over by creatures you'd rather never meet.
09:12Ila da Quimaja Granji has the highest concentration of venomous snakes in the world.
09:19It's the only natural habitat of the golden lancehead viper, one of the most dangerous snakes on the planet.
09:25Somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 of these critters live here.
09:30They say you're never more than 3 feet away from meeting one of them on the island.
09:35They're like life insurance salesmen.
09:37Lancehead vipers have venom that's 3 to 5 times stronger than that of their closest mainland relatives.
09:43Evolution helped them to develop it to keep them properly fed.
09:47Their only prey is birds that visit the island to rest.
09:51Lanceheads have to slither up the rocks for lunch and can't wait and trace those birds like other snakes.
09:57So they developed a super venom that works almost instantly.
10:02One legend says the snakes ended up in the middle of the ocean thanks to pirates.
10:06They were looking for a good place to hide their booty.
10:09I mean their goal.
10:11The island was a perfect match.
10:13They also needed something to protect their treasures from any invaders.
10:17So they brought some snakes and those multiplied quickly.
10:20A more realistic explanation involves not humans, but rising sea levels.
10:27Snake Island used to be part of the Brazilian mainland.
10:30But the sea isolated it from the rest of the country around 11,000 years ago.
10:35The snakes that ended up on that island were able to spread and thrive because they had no predators to
10:41bother them.
10:42And when people tried to, um, well, let's just say it didn't end well.
10:46Another island legend is about a fisherman who came here to pick bananas.
10:51He didn't expect he'd have the company of venomous snakes, and they were ecstatic about a new item on the
10:57menu.
10:58The fisherman ran for his life back to the water, but had been bitten before he managed to jump into
11:03his boat.
11:04A couple days later, his boat was found.
11:06But he didn't make it through the journey.
11:09Snake Island has long been uninhabited.
11:12But it used to have a human population for a few years, from 1909 to 1920.
11:18It was the lighthouse keeper, his wife and three kids.
11:22Their task was not to let people on the island.
11:25According to another legend, one night, snakes got inside their house through the windows.
11:31The parents grabbed their kids and tried to escape to the boat.
11:34Sadly, the snakes were faster.
11:36No one of the family had survived that visit.
11:39The lighthouse has been automated.
11:42Now, the Navy visit it regularly to check if it's in order and keep visitors away from the island.
11:47It's both for the safety of people and for the good of snakes that are a critically endangered species.
11:54Some of those people are tourists looking for adventures.
11:57Others are smugglers that capture and sell lanceheads for $10,000 to $30,000.
12:03Animal collectors and scientists are willing to pay that price.
12:06There are rumors that the venom helps cure heart conditions.
12:10In the past, someone tried to set the island on fire to get rid of the snakes altogether and clear
12:16the land for agriculture.
12:18But the snakes have an important mission.
12:20It's crucial to study them to better understand the whole lancehead snake family and to treat people who get bitten
12:27by them on the mainland.
12:28Such incidents happen a lot in Brazil.
12:31If you really want to visit the island, you have to be one of those biologists or researchers who use
12:38it as a real-life lab to study the golden lanceheads.
12:41You must go through a lot of paperwork and get an official permission for a visit.
12:46There will also always be a doctor in the group to help others if something goes wrong and Navy officers
12:52to make it safe.
12:54Elsewhere, there are places where people do survive alongside snakes.
12:59Musambua Island on Lake Victoria in Uganda is home to 2,000 snakes and less than 100 people.
13:06That's a ratio of over 20 snakes per person.
13:08Rock pythons, cobras, vipers…
13:11You can find those even in people's houses.
13:14Sometimes, they share beds with the locals.
13:17They believe the island is home to many kinds of spirits that have transformed into snakes.
13:22The people are just guests here, and they must never, ever hurt those snakes.
13:27Even if you find a cobra under your pillow, you aren't supposed to scream for help.
13:32You'll scare away good luck.
13:34And if you hurt a snake, well, prepare to pack your bags and leave the island for good.
13:40There are also monitor lizards on the island.
13:43The snakes live in peace with them and the locals.
13:46They feed mainly on bird eggs and won't attack you first.
13:51The real danger of North Sentinel Island isn't the snakes, it's the people.
13:56The island, about the size of Manhattan and surrounded by corals,
14:00is home to one of the most isolated tribes on the planet, the Sentinelese.
14:05They're a hunter-gatherer society that doesn't welcome any strangers at all.
14:10The only safe outside visit took place in 1967.
14:14Based on what they saw back then, anthropologists guess there could be anywhere between 50 and a couple hundred people
14:21living on the island.
14:22No one else in the world speaks or understands their language.
14:28Another dangerous place is Makajima Island in Japan, south of Tokyo.
14:32It's famous for the active volcano it sits on.
14:35There have been six eruptions in the last century alone.
14:39Poisonous gas has been leaking through the ground ever since the latest incident in 2000.
14:45For years, all residents and tourists had to carry gas masks at all times when on the island.
14:51When the siren went off, it was a sign to put it on immediately.
14:55It meant the sulfur levels in the air had dangerously risen.
14:58Luckily, it's been years since the gas masks were necessary.
15:03Volcanic activity made Lake Kivu in Africa a dangerous place as well.
15:08It sits exactly where tectonic plates are slowly moving away from one another.
15:13It makes the Earth's crust thinner and the volcanoes more active.
15:18That's why there are hot springs under Kivu that send hot water, carbon dioxide, and methane into the lake.
15:25Microorganisms that live in the lake generate more methane.
15:29All these gases remain in the water because the lake is really deep.
15:32This mix is denser than regular lake water, so the lake has unusual layers.
15:39Kivu is dangerous because all the gases trapped in it could find a way out.
15:43That would be a disaster.
15:47Saba is a tiny Caribbean island that's seen more storms in the last 150 years than any other place in
15:54the world.
15:54There were over 60 big hurricanes, 15 Category 3 storms, and 7 Category 5 ones, the most destructive a hurricane
16:05can get.
16:06If you want to try your luck, visit in winter.
16:09You'll be less likely to witness a storm, but landing will still tickle your nerves.
16:14Saba also happens to have one of the shortest and most dangerous runways on the planet, stuck between two rocky
16:21ridges.
16:23Buved Island is the loneliest and most remote one in the world.
16:27The nearest piece of land is 1,000 miles north, and the Antarctic coast is 1,100 miles to the
16:34south.
16:35Fewer than 100 people have ever been here, mostly scientists that used to work at a research station.
16:41If you decided to travel there, the journey would take days.
16:45If something went wrong, there would be no one to save you in time.
16:49Plus, 93% of the island is covered with a glacier, and there's just one appropriate place to moor a
16:56boat.
16:56Hey, sounds like fun! Sign me up!
16:59Not.
17:00Mount Washington in the U.S. gets way more visitors, but not everyone comes back safely.
17:06It's known as the most dangerous small mountain on the planet.
17:10The winds here are the fastest on the surface of the Earth, reaching 200 miles per hour.
17:15Hey, let's go fly a kite, huh?
17:17Huh? Freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls don't help the ascent either.
17:21Hikers are often steered away from trails and roads.
17:25Even if you do make it to the top, you'll experience overloads like on the peak of Mount Everest.
17:32This tourist destination has the highest entrance price of all.
17:36It could cost you your life.
17:38Those who spend over 16 hours in the death zone, and it is the official name of the most dangerous
17:44area on Mount Everest, risk never returning home.
17:48Those who endure 48 hours there will almost certainly never see their families again.
17:54The altitude in this region is over 26,000 feet, and winds can reach speeds of 62 miles per hour,
18:02sweeping everything, including you, off their path.
18:05Only one person has stood tall in this hostile environment for 90 hours, but there was a bit of cheating
18:11involved, as it was with supplemental oxygen.
18:14Yep, the precious O2 gas is extremely scarce there.
18:18Without this vital resource, the maximum time someone can survive is about 21 hours.
18:23A record set by this guy.
18:26Yeah, he was tough.
18:27He reached the Everest peak 10 times.
18:30His fastest ascent took slightly under 17 hours, but Pemba broke his record, ascending Everest in 8 hours and 10
18:38minutes.
18:39However, these accomplishments are not feats for the average Joe.
18:43These record holders have, in a sense, won a genetic lottery.
18:48Both are Nepalese Sherpas, hence the names.
18:50Sherpas are native to the mountains and have evolved a natural resistance to high-altitude living.
18:57Despite the undeniable dangers, people seem unwilling to stop visiting the death zone.
19:03Since the establishment of climbing records, over 300 people have lost their lives there.
19:09Last year alone, 18 people perished.
19:12And as of July 2024, the death zone has claimed 8 lives.
19:17Now, as creepy as it may sound, the death zone on Mount Everest resembles a graveyard.
19:23The challenge lies in that of recovering a body from this perilous location costs families a fortune.
19:30Oxygen alone, which is necessary to descend a body, can amount to as much as 20 grand.
19:36This may seem far-fetched, but the operation requires 12 people, each needing an oxygen cylinder that costs around $400.
19:46So, do the math.
19:48And it's not just the oxygen.
19:50Imagine the other expenses summed up.
19:52Still, it's not only the money.
19:55The retrieval process is fraught with danger for those tasked with it, causing many private companies to decline such requests.
20:02Recently, authorities managed to recover four bodies and a skeleton from the treacherous area.
20:09While not all of them have been identified, one body belonged to an individual who passed away in 2017, remaining
20:17in the death zone for seven years.
20:20El Caminito del Rey in Spain, Maluga, may look like child's play compared to Everest's death zone, as, reportedly, it
20:29has only claimed six lives.
20:31But still, this is eerie.
20:34Imagine you're standing on an old piece of wood some people dare to call a walkway that seems to be
20:41about to fall apart.
20:42You can't really move freely on it, as it's just three feet wide.
20:46And if you look down, you'll see nothing but a river 330 feet below you.
20:52You may want to sarcastically call it an engineering wonder, but in reality, it really is.
20:59Look, it seems like this walkway was glued to the side of a cliff.
21:03The tools and technique used to build it were quite rudimentary and unsafe, which is not surprising.
21:10The pathway is over a century old.
21:13If you're wondering how it was built without any machinery we have today, let me explain.
21:19The poor builders just hung off the side of the mountain using ropes.
21:23It's obvious no one wanted to work on that project, so prisoners, who had received the death penalty, were invited
21:31to participate.
21:32In exchange, they could get a reduction in their sentences, if they made it out alive, of course.
21:38Now, originally, the walkway was built to connect workers at the hydroelectric power plant by some local waterfalls.
21:45You know, just a little bridge to help them cross while transporting materials and keeping things in check at the
21:52channel.
21:53The construction kicked off in 1901 and wrapped up by 1905.
21:58The walkway was famously crossed by King Alfonso XIII in 1921 during the inauguration of a dam.
22:07This pathway has seen some rough times by the early 2000s and was partly closed for over a decade.
22:14Four years of renovations and 9 million euros later, it burst back onto the scene in 2015.
22:21It has gained a reputation as the world's most dangerous walkway due to a couple of tragic accidents in the
22:28late 90s.
22:29Now, you can stroll along a 1.8-mile path that hugs the edge of the gorge.
22:36Hey, remember I told you this Caminito only took six lives?
22:40Forget it.
22:41Nobody knows how much it really was.
22:44All right, the next cliff destination may seem totally safe at first glance, but it's all about a very particular
22:52activity performed there.
22:54It's definitely not as high up in the sky as El Caminito del Rey, only soaring 89 feet.
23:01But this cliff is meant to jump from, and people actually do that.
23:05Now, if you were to take a watermelon and give it a dramatic drop into the water below, you'd end
23:11up with a spectacular crimson splash of watermelon juice, looking like a crime scene.
23:17It would plummet at a wild speed of 53 miles per hour, and it begs the question, can a human
23:24handle that kind of dive?
23:26Spoiler alert, absolutely.
23:28Welcome to Red Bull cliff diving, where brave athletes take the plunge from heights equivalent to an 8-story building.
23:36But before you think about trying this for kicks, let me tell you, it takes serious fitness to pull it
23:42off.
23:42The better your shape is, the better your dive.
23:45But it's also all about your peepers.
23:48Your eyes become your ultimate navigation system as you make that fearless leap.
23:53Fearless?
23:55The impact is no joke.
23:57If you dare to jump, you'll feel around 5G force on impact.
24:02For comparison, when you're on a commercial flight, even during the craziest turbulence, you rarely feel more than 1.3
24:10G force.
24:10But when you dive from a cliff, your heart's working overtime, and that 5G force can leave you lightheaded in
24:17no time.
24:18Your brain starts to feel a bit oxygen-starved, and before you know it, you could black out in a
24:24few seconds.
24:25All that blood suddenly rushes to your head, your face puffs up, and your lower eyelids practically cover your eyes.
24:32This phenomenon is called red-out, because all you see is a bright glow through those squeezed-shut eyelids.
24:38Yeah, that sounds like fun.
24:41Now, unlike all those cliffs, this place is pretty accessible, and is popular among freedivers for having little current, which
24:49is good when you go in-depth.
24:51However, despite all those seemingly nice aspects of the Blue Hole in Egypt, this place has taken around 200 lives
25:00in recent years.
25:01Now, to be honest, technically, the Blue Hole is a complete average dive spot.
25:06There's nothing extraordinary that would make it more dangerous than any other spot in the Red Sea.
25:12However, diving through the arch at the Blue Hole is no joke.
25:17It's a tricky, submerged tunnel that has seen its fair share of accidents.
25:22While there's no official count of how many have lost their lives here, one source estimates that around 130 divers
25:29perished there between 1997 and 2012.
25:33It's more than 8 each year.
25:36Some say the number could be as high as 200, including a few snorkel-related accidents not tied to the
25:42arch dive.
25:43To help keep things safe, Egyptian authorities placed a police officer at the Blue Hole, who makes sure divers are
25:51with certified guides who know the ropes.
25:54Now, the arch itself sits 170 feet down, which means you really need to know what you're doing and have
26:03the right gear, since recreational divers usually max out at around 100 feet or so.
26:08For experienced technical divers, it's mostly manageable.
26:12The real challenge is keeping track of your air in your tank, because if you mess up and take too
26:18long down there, you're going to need more than one tank of air to get through safely.
26:23If the gas isn't planned out right, you could find yourself short on air when you need to do your
26:28decompression stops.
26:30Or, even worse, you can run out of it completely.
26:33And, you know, that would be bad.
26:35You can run out of it completely.
26:35You can run out of it completely.
26:36You can run out of it completely.
26:36You can run out of it completely.
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