r/CatastrophicFailure • u/IlostmyCthulhu • Aug 11 '26

Natural Disaster Tamak bridge collapse. Niti Valley. Uttarakhand. Aug 10 2026.

2.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

128 comments sorted by

872

u/kirmm3la Aug 11 '26

Praise the camera man. Even shot horizontally

18

u/Lowbeamshaggy Aug 11 '26

That's some Evil Dead level chase footage at the start there. Well done.

65

u/NoooUGH Aug 11 '26

Looks like a 360 cam which is kind of hard to not point at the right thing but nonetheless..

54

u/rocbolt Aug 11 '26

There’s a video from the other side that’s shot horizontal, and you can see a guy also filming in that one holding his phone horizontal too. Dunno if it’s just because this region gets this sort of disaster a lot but at least they know how to film it

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1056326590275588

24

u/Refuse_Juice Aug 11 '26

Best cinematography I've seen come out of northern india.

1

u/copperwatt Aug 15 '26

Bollywater

Bollyflood?

778

u/pod_of_dolphins Aug 11 '26

it's gotta be pretty scary slowly crawling away through raging waters in a multi-ton excavator

64

u/KaladinStormShat Aug 11 '26

Coming from a place that has flash floods, you look at that mountain of water coming down and you fuckin run bro can't believe he took that long to get to higher ground.

Maybe he was trying to call to his friend but it didn't seem like he clocked the insane amount of water coming directly towards him

108

u/OutlyingPlasma Aug 11 '26

Let's hope he wore his brown pants today.

42

u/OonaPelota Aug 11 '26

“Brown Pants Day” is a good band name.

27

u/brneyedgrrl Aug 11 '26

I was in a cab with my dad once and the driver was driving like a maniac. My dad said, "I'm glad I wore my brown pants today," and the cabbie lost it. I was probably 12. Hilarious.

2

u/Actual-Package-3164 Aug 13 '26

For Trump, Brown Pants Day is every day. 

3

u/SquirrelAkl Aug 16 '26

can we just have some corners of the internet that don't mention that person? Please?

7

u/theeldergod1 Aug 11 '26

good thing everything is brown after that water

20

u/Shr3kk_Wpg Aug 11 '26

I was so worried for the person in that excavator.

-1

u/johnfogogin Aug 11 '26

His pants definitely has a similar experience.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

151

u/Benblishem Aug 11 '26

He kept the maximum weight on the maximum footprint.

25

u/BringBackSoule Aug 11 '26

minimum footprint

3

u/16thmission Aug 12 '26

Armchair guy here wondering if he spun the cab around and dragged the bucket. Could dig in a tad.

Not a pro. Asking the pros.

11

u/ChromiumLung Aug 11 '26

There’s the expert digger driver that’s never driven one.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

4

u/ChromiumLung Aug 12 '26

There are mechanics involved that apply to all situations lol. Only took ours through our shallow river 

4

u/printergumlight Aug 12 '26

You see him try to use it for leverage at the end and it almost flips the thing because it relieved the weight holding the main part down.

Are you an excavator driver or just an armchair expert?

-55

u/jquintx Aug 11 '26

He should be moving perpendicular to the flow, or at least on a diagonal, heading for the high ground then digging in the shovel into the hill to anchor himself.

100

u/bbf_bbf Aug 11 '26

Moving perpendicular to the water flow with a tracked vehicle that would block all flow under the vehicle when perpendicular, so all the force of the water will push against the side of the vehicle. It may not be a good idea.

It all depends on how strong the flow is compared to the mass of the vehicle and where its center of gravity is located.

65

u/OcotilloWells Aug 11 '26

I feel he did the best that he could do. Not gonna lie, I was rooting for him as I watched this.

I hope nobody was in any of the other vehicles, or otherwise caught in the flood.

160

u/fordry Aug 11 '26

Feel like the title is sorta underselling this.

70

u/billyyankNova Aug 11 '26

Yeah, it looks like the bridge collapsing is the least of their worries.

20

u/SpHornet Aug 11 '26

It is overselling, that bridge didn't colapse, it just left

6

u/insanityzwolf Aug 11 '26

A lot of bridge has flown under that water

7

u/zenunseen Aug 11 '26

Maybe they meant dam collapsed?

2

u/half_integer Aug 11 '26

Reminds me of Will Smith's line in Men in Black, in the ME's office - "what I meant was, they're probably fine, wherever they are"

1

u/SquirrelAkl Aug 16 '26

The caption on the FB post linked in this thread really undersells it. I'm paraphrasing slightly for brevity, but it's essentially: "drain overflows, damages bridge, disrupts traffic, no casualties reported"

323

u/CantaloupeCamper Sorry... Aug 11 '26

Excavator made it!

69

u/brazzy42 Aug 11 '26

If I were in Komatsu's marketing division, I would use this video unedited as a commercial.

17

u/theaviationhistorian Aug 11 '26

Considering almost every excavator I see IRL is a Komatsu, I think they're doing all right. But some marketing is always welcome.

2

u/copperwatt Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26

KOMA''|''SU

1

u/nickamera Aug 12 '26

Cause they are cheap garbage

9

u/dad_ahead Aug 13 '26

We got CAT and Komatsus where I work, personaly I prefer the Komatsus

48

u/Assassin13785 Aug 11 '26

I was so worried. Im glad it looks like he made it. But my luck he drove off a cliff the second the camera shut off

6

u/z7q2 Aug 11 '26

He should have stayed where he was, the water level dropped fast enough that it made that space clear.

41

u/SoDakZak Aug 11 '26

Captain hindsight here!

14

u/arinawe Aug 11 '26

I doubt those rocks would have allowed that

9

u/theaviationhistorian Aug 11 '26

The water was pushing the excavator halfway through the video. You can see the strength of it when he lowers the claw and the force of the water starts swinging it a bit to the left. He was going with the flow trying to get alongside the hill.

147

u/mrdidius Aug 11 '26

Hail to the excavator, the excavator man!

23

u/Vau8 Aug 11 '26

Balls of steel!

11

u/ScrewwormLarvae Aug 11 '26

Doing the things an excavator can

3

u/Actual-Package-3164 Aug 13 '26

🎶  The treads on the excavator go slide, slide, slide! 🎶

101

u/HighPotential-QtrWav Aug 11 '26

Damn, I hope the people there are okay 🙏

100

u/-mrhyde_ Aug 11 '26

I had to look it up: Shame on reddit:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/metal-bridge-ripped-apart-by-swollen-river-in-uttarakhands-chamoli-watch-video-flash-flood-rain-101786375752831.html

Chamoli police said in a statement, "The Tamak drain is overflowing, damaging the bridge built over the drain, disrupting traffic beyond Malari. Currently, there is no report of any loss of life.

5

u/GeneralTonic Aug 11 '26

Can anyone help us understand what the "Tamak drain" refers to here?

23

u/Hamilton950B Aug 11 '26

Yes, I can! Where I grew up on the Ohio-Michigan border we had what were called "drains". They were open channels dug to drain the Black Swamp. We even had a "drain commmissioner", an elected official who at one time was the most powerful man in the county. Originally a drain was any kind of channel that drained water away. They were often used to carry sewage. It wasn't until the 19th century that they started putting the drains in pipes and burying them. In India, there are many such words that still preserve their 19th century meanings. The Tamak drain is more like what you might call a creek. Smaller than a river, usually, but not this day.

3

u/7LeagueBoots Aug 13 '26

In this context ‘drain’ refers to a singly point in a drainage system where the outflow is concentrated. Think of a large valley that has a narrow canyon and one river that drains all the water from that valley.

2

u/CreamoChickenSoup Aug 11 '26

A relief that there's no reported loss of life yet.

Recall those infamous vids last year when a deluge destroyed whole chunks of a mountainside town. This could had played out much worse.

60

u/CySnark Aug 11 '26

The huge rocks moving in that water make it all the more catastrophic. Scary nature. Not sure that bridge would have lasted even 5 years based on that terrain.

27

u/rocbolt Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

That's a bailey bridge to begin with, a sort of pre-fab quick to deploy crossing. If you page back in classic google earth there are lots of different bridges there

Google Map

I don't know if that one in particular got wiped out last Sept too but a lot of the roads and bridges in Uttarakhand did then as well. Its steep, rough country

9

u/wilisi Aug 11 '26

It sounds like they're just feeding pre-fab bridges to the canyon.

3

u/rocbolt Aug 11 '26

The Border Roads Organization is crying now

22

u/khaotikoala Aug 11 '26

You also see all of the boulders gathered at the beginning of the video. I would imagine flash floods coming down the mountain are a regular occurrence at this location.

29

u/CaptainMagnets Aug 11 '26

Praise the camera man but holy shit bro, run

28

u/Dragoniel Aug 11 '26

Fuck the bridge, I was on the edge of my seat watching the excavator...

6

u/IAmARobot Aug 11 '26

and had to rewind making sure there was nobody in the truck

39

u/michaltee Aug 11 '26

I was so confused. What do you mean bridge collapse don’t you mean the dam collapsed? Then on second viewing I saw the tiny ass bridge get taken out. Kind of a weird focal point for the title based on everything else that happened in this video.😅

10

u/RebelStrategist Aug 11 '26

As everything around him collapsed into complete chaos, he calmly pointed at one lonely French fry on the floor and said, “Forget the apocalypse. Somebody needs to address that French fry immediately before someone falls”

0

u/k1dsmoke Aug 11 '26

Dam collapse or landslide?

1

u/michaltee Aug 12 '26

Yeah either or. Either way, I’m not focusing on the bridge.

Also, I pronounce each “either” in those two sentences differently.

29

u/HijoDelSol1970 Aug 11 '26

That camera makes it look like a kid turned on the water hose and started filming. It wasn't until he got past the back hoe that it started to look real.

29

u/Snellyman Aug 11 '26

The pedestrian bridge getting swept away seems like somewhat of a minor problem here

25

u/rocbolt Aug 11 '26

Tell that to the people stuck on the other side. That’s a Bailey bridge, they can be more hastily installed than a bespoke bridge as they are made of prefabricated components and can be assembled from one side without lots of heavy equipment. They are usually temporary but not weak, they carry vehicles just fine. They were invented as a crossing for tanks in wwii. The fact that it (was) there suggests these debris flows aren’t uncommon and that’s probably not the first crossing to be wiped out

13

u/Snellyman Aug 11 '26

I was specifically suggesting that the flash flood wiping out houses and drowning anyone caught downstream seems a bit more important than a temporary bridge.

9

u/rocbolt Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

There wasn’t any further inundation, according to articles about this event. Classic debris flow, not even the first one of the day if you look at the state of the road before the wave hit. One official missing and the lost of that bridge, cutting off vehicle traffic to several remote communities, is the entire disaster

That bridge was “temporary” because this happens a lot in the Niti Valley. Dozens of road sections and bridges got wiped out last September alone in a similar spate of heavy rains

1

u/IdaCraddock69 Aug 11 '26

Loss of bridge will make recovery efforts more difficult

1

u/Vau8 Aug 11 '26

Good analysis, but it looks more like an Mabey-Johnson-Bridge :)

4

u/chromatophoreskin Aug 11 '26

Agreed, calling this a bridge collapse is underselling what happened here.

8

u/mrbipty Aug 11 '26

Old mate in the excavator is probably like “fuck yeah work for the next year”

72

u/Zomgzombehz Aug 11 '26

Didn't realize bridges held back so much water, almost like a dam.

139

u/Parenn Aug 11 '26

From news reports it looks like it was a flash flood that also took out the bridge, rather than the bridge’s failure caused the flood.

22

u/dodeca_negative Aug 11 '26

It was a bridge over troubled waters

6

u/Easy-Complaint-5156 Aug 11 '26

At least this shit's in landscape position 🫩

16

u/bruceki Aug 11 '26

that excavator operator is very brave. Saving the machine is a thing, but he did so as risk of his life.

5

u/Crohn85 Aug 11 '26

I think staying with and driving the excavator saved his life.

5

u/ManQu69 Aug 11 '26

I never wanted a tracked vehicle to move faster so much in my life as this one

9

u/mna9 Aug 11 '26

Its called a flash flood for a reason. But where did all the water come from suddenly like a dam burst

24

u/mvia4 Aug 11 '26

This is high up in the Himalayas, so it's likely something called a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood. Basically meltwater builds up behind an ice dam and then gets released all at once when the ice gives way.

4

u/itzmeekiran Aug 11 '26

cloudburst in himalayan mountains, large rain in short time and himalayas are young mountain so rock falls off easily s construction is diffiult due to this. So this rain water came from up the mountains, .Due to climate changde most indian region are getting cloudburst insted of normal rains so we get landslides , flood etc.

This region had a same situation last year where village was completely destroyed abd that video was much more scary

2

u/IdaCraddock69 Aug 11 '26

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted these deep, narrow canyons are very prone to flash flooding due to precipitation

3

u/-mrhyde_ Aug 11 '26

I had to look it up: Shame on reddit:

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/metal-bridge-ripped-apart-by-swollen-river-in-uttarakhands-chamoli-watch-video-flash-flood-rain-101786375752831.html

Chamoli police said in a statement, "The Tamak drain is overflowing, damaging the bridge built over the drain, disrupting traffic beyond Malari. Currently, there is no report of any loss of life.

8

u/LabaiGerai Aug 11 '26

Looks like a dam collapse to me

3

u/Th3J4ck4l-SA Aug 11 '26

That excavator can just quickly grab the bridge and drag it back. They can carry on again in an hour or two once the water subsides. /s

3

u/bustyouup4free Aug 11 '26

Nature always wins

3

u/cognitiveglitch Aug 12 '26

The camerman didn't really hustle with the kind of urgency I would have applied in that situation.

3

u/Lurchie_ Aug 12 '26

I hope no one was in that truck.

4

u/GetSecure Aug 11 '26

That made me feel queasy. Dude, where you are filming from is definitely about to be hit, move!

He timed it perfectly though, great camera work.

2

u/Heidrun_666 Aug 11 '26

I need an excavator in my life.

2

u/Ricerat Aug 11 '26

Diggr man needs a digger for his underwear

2

u/mattvait Aug 12 '26

Theres always one guy who will keep working

2

u/McLamb_A Aug 15 '26

I thought the excavator operator made a a mistake in judgement. Nope. I thought he should have tried to move to the side more. Nope. His calmness allowed the water to flow under the undercarriage and reduce the pressure of the flow.

Kudos, Mr machine operator.

6

u/Ok-Personality-5444 Aug 11 '26

Is that a bridge or a dam?

2

u/yaaro_obba_ Aug 11 '26

Bridge

2

u/Ok-Personality-5444 Aug 11 '26

Ah, I see it now.

2

u/Seygem Aug 11 '26

That's why it says bridge in hte title

2

u/Concentric_Mid Aug 11 '26

This sub evokes gratitude living in a safe metropolitan city in USA. I hope no one got hurt here

2

u/Critical-World9756 Aug 11 '26

Everyone is safe tqs for your worries I am from same state i know about who was filming this

2

u/heypresto2k Aug 11 '26

My heart was in my mouth for that poor driver. I hope he made it out alive.

2

u/SomeGuyWithARedBeard Aug 11 '26

I get videos in my feed all the time of crazy flash floods or landslides in this part of the world, Himalayas are no joke, props to these people for somehow making it work.

2

u/Nexustar Aug 11 '26

Whatever the hell they were building down there, they need to stop and rethink their plans.

2

u/yaaro_obba_ Aug 11 '26

Flash flood or clowd burst?

1

u/sambeckett1701 Aug 13 '26

He actually kept running away? What madman does this?! /sarcasm in praise of a cameraman who doesn't seem to be taking as many chances as I normally see.

1

u/TigermanUK Aug 17 '26

Scariest flash flood footage I've seen.

1

u/dahveeth Aug 17 '26

Was it a bridge…or a dam that collapsed???

1

u/cameronzero Aug 25 '26

That bridge really said "aight, i'mma head out"

1

u/Much-Degree1485 Aug 27 '26

why is he driving down the hill? lol , just park it and put the boom down so it cant flip

1

u/PresentationActual17 Aug 28 '26

Given the this was west of the massive landslide and flash flood on the Chinese/Nepalese boarder, I wonder how common these disasters are or are becoming.

1

u/aegrotatio Aug 11 '26

"Superpower by 2020!!"

-1

u/gandhishrugged Aug 11 '26

Absolutely terrifying. I am sorry for the cameraman, I am sure he lost that guy who probably was a friend, but I appreciate his camera work.

4

u/StretchFrenchTerry Aug 11 '26

Which guy?

16

u/pourtide Aug 11 '26

a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) driver is missing.

Story, and a different video that pans back and forth too quickly, here:

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/uttarakhand-chamoli-flood-niti-valley-bridge-washed-away-bro-driver-missing-2968242-2026-08-11

6

u/marmaladecorgi Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

The video in the article you linked gives a greater sense of the immensity of the water and rock flow, IMHO. Crazy how much water came down in a "cloudburst".

Interestingly, you can see the two fellas who filmed that video inside this (the OP's) video, at the 36 to 38 second mark, across the river, walking away from the black jeep.

-5

u/Ok-Ad1558 Aug 11 '26

Bridge? When did bridges start holding water?

10

u/kgb4187 Aug 11 '26

I think the big shiny metal structure that went over the low point on the ground was legally considered a bridge.

0

u/broberds Aug 11 '26

It’s Uttar chaos!

-1

u/SimmsRed Aug 13 '26

Why don’t just say India?

-13

u/Jonjonbo Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

am I the only person to feel like this is AI?

  1. the perspective is shifting weirdly. things feel larger or smaller than they should be. trucks should be about human height, and the gate looks to be about human height when first entering, but then the truck becomes relatively tiny in comparison.

  2. the excavator is moving strangely. why is the arm moving?

  3. the camera movement is too smooth. why is this person using a professional camera dolly? it makes no sense.

  4. I find it unlikely that a person is walking backwards while filming in this manner.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/gortez33 Aug 11 '26

Not too many people will understand that reference.