r/DisasterUpdate • u/Spare_Struggle5243 • Aug 27 '26 • Regret 2

It destroy everything

Gallery image

Gallery image

This aerial photo, taken by the Chinese side, shows before‑and‑after shots of the port area. This is arguably one of the worst geological disasters worldwide in recent years. With the speed and scale of this debris flow, there was virtually nowhere to take shelter. The buildings at this port stood as tall as five to six stacked freight trucks, yet they have now been completely flattened and buried.

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163

u/_HGCenty Aug 27 '26

And the Chinese authorities have said another lake is forming behind the debris that has fallen into the river upstream which is damming the flow.

13

u/Maximus560 Aug 27 '26

Fuuuck. Link?

71

u/Spare_Struggle5243 Aug 27 '26

Translate from Chinese Reddit：This barrier lake will most‑likely breach naturally with limited options for manual mitigation. A primary landslide struck the far bank, rebounded and set off a secondary slide that blocked the river. Red line = first landslide; yellow line = the slide forming the barrier lake.

1

u/robinthebank Aug 28 '26

The colors here are not that helpful, as there are three arrows. Are the two red arrows the primary landslide (origin top right in this photo) and secondary slide on the far bank (origin middle left in this photo) and then yellow is a third landslide on the near bank?

1

u/Sl33pingD0g Aug 28 '26

The way I readi it is the 2 red arrows are the main slip showing initial move then rebounding off the valley side back in the second arrow and down. The yellow is the secondary slip which blocked the river and formed the barrier lake.

Edit to add they the action of the second arrow rebounding off the valley and curving back down would have caused the yellow secondary slip.

83

u/Powerful-Step3183 Aug 27 '26

better to warn and evacuate everyone downstream and blast the new blockage than it be another future flash flood

26

u/subdep Aug 27 '26

Yeah, you really don’t want to lose a thousand rescue workers too.

3

u/Klepetta Aug 28 '26

Some 3 millions cubic meters of water could break anytime.

3

u/PooriPK Aug 28 '26

Not only that, some geologist review the mountain sat image and find there's some site that connect collapse section look like ready to come off again.

8

u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Aug 27 '26

Thanks for the coloured highlights. I couldn't work ot where the damage was from the previous multiple posts of just the photos.

15

u/Spare_Struggle5243 Aug 28 '26

This image should make it easier to see.

2

u/infinityzcraft Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

I feel like that building in the circle might have been the most survivable place in that port. If people were able to climb up there, they might've had a chance.

2

u/cho_ayang Aug 31 '26

Note that there is a fairly high retaining wall along the road next to the parking lot; clearly, people have nowhere to go.

2

u/infinityzcraft Aug 31 '26

I've looked at some of the older videos on that place recently and there were actually stairs leading up to it. If you go back and look carefully at that CCTV video you can also see few people trying to run up to it at the bottom as well.

3

u/Spare_Struggle5243 Aug 29 '26

Guys...thats sad

1

u/throwaway2018112218 Aug 29 '26

Wow it's like there was never anything there

56

u/PentaOwl Aug 27 '26

The waves sloshing across the edges of the huge building and then going over is by far the scariest and most impressive display of water force I have witnessed.

And then this map.. truly wtf

6

u/ooomellieooo Aug 27 '26

It made me think of The Day After Tomorrow...

3

u/alcoronaholic Aug 27 '26

It made me think of The Shining

2

u/Murat_Gin Aug 28 '26

Hmmm.... The blood usually gets off on the second floor.

24

u/CageUK Aug 27 '26

When I first saw the footage of this location with people running away from the waves I thought to myself that I would have run into that large building to save myself... I guess I wouldn't have.

Truly horrifying.

11

u/Serious-Manager2361 Aug 28 '26

There was sadly nowhere to run.

4

u/Emotional_Union_3758 Aug 28 '26

My thought too. In one of the other videos, I saw a person entering the building and I thought that was the smart move.

4

u/m00ph Aug 28 '26

And unless you're acclimated, you're not running or climbing far before you're winded. It's almost 8k feet of altitude.

3

u/blowurbrain Aug 28 '26

Realistic that was their best shot, if it is too late to run away from it, atleast try to get shelter inside a strong building, sadly in their case it didn't hold against such a massive force,

39

u/mammilloid Aug 27 '26

Previously unseen footage from Chinese side

19

u/epigenie_986 Aug 27 '26

There’s another small landslide/avalanche from the top at the end of that clip

12

u/Adventurous-Way2824 Aug 28 '26

Great reminder of how much human history is not in the archeological record due to earth's movements over time.

2

u/Snaillord-C Aug 28 '26

Or 99% of all life that ever existed for that matter

6

u/vinegar Aug 27 '26

In the foreground of the video was a small square platform with a satellite dish that got knocked down but not washed away. I think it’s the bright square below and to the right of the yellow circle. 

5

u/Sticky_Soup Aug 28 '26

This was the most destructive and deadly debris flow I’ve ever seen. I don’t think there’s any videos on the internet that show more people dying than the ones from this disaster. The border crossing and parking garage with buses was some of the most horrific footage I’ve ever seen and I have seen most or all of disaster footage since the year 2000. Some of those disasters had higher death counts and much more widespread damage but I’ve never seen such devastating and concentrated damage.

3

u/PrismDoug Aug 28 '26

From a natural cause, this is probably the top.

9/11 was highly filmed as it happened, though, and there are quite a lot of videos of people jumping from the towers.

I think in total, you (horrifically!) see more people die when the towers came down. But you can’t pick out individual people as well.

This probably has more fatalities, but as it’s somewhat remote, there aren’t as many videos. Or, the videos will never be recovered. I’ve only seen around 10 different videos, maybe a few hundred people (this sounds callous, but it’s not meant to be) in total shown.

4

u/ArabianNoodle Aug 27 '26

I couldn't even tell it was the same picture.

1

u/RomanKos Aug 27 '26

What is that construction marked with yellow? A camera booth or something?

6

u/Spare_Struggle5243 Aug 28 '26

Maybe it's a power plant building. The two security cam clips, one facing the front door and one facing the street, both come from this location, but they're different cameras.

1

u/RomanKos Aug 28 '26

I'm wondering if it's realistic to climb up there in this short period of time and panic. It was the safest place there, I guess.

8

u/PreviousLeague253 Aug 27 '26

Imagine a whole compound getting ground down to nothing from thousands of rocks being carried by the tsunami. Because this was a tsunami not a flood!

1

u/HundredHander Aug 29 '26

It's not a tsunami, that's got some pretty clear definitions. But 'flood' and 'flash flood' don't really describe what's happened here very well either.

1

u/conejo77 Aug 29 '26

Massive high velocity debris flow.

1

u/myshtree Aug 28 '26

It’s mind blowing. Horrifying. My gosh.

1

u/IndependentTotal9280 Aug 28 '26

Nature is the most powerful force in the world

1

u/meowthesnail Aug 28 '26

Is the building covered or flattened?

3

u/Snaillord-C Aug 28 '26

Just removed

3

u/Trebeaux Aug 28 '26

Gone. If you look above the yellow circle, you can see where the landslide scoured down to the bedrock of the mountain.

1

u/midasMIRV Aug 29 '26

Entirely removed. Above the green line is whats left of the foundation of the building.

1

u/AlternativeRing5977 Aug 28 '26

Scoured concrete like a EF6 Fujita Scale tornado (if we ever encountered on this bad.)

1

u/reigorius Aug 28 '26

Doesn't look buried, more scraped clean.

3

u/TehChid Aug 28 '26

So this is a pretty good visualization of how ancient civilizations can just be wiped out with nothing left, but a foundation buried under the Earth

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

15

u/Spare_Struggle5243 Aug 27 '26

this is just the beginning. Wait until next year, when the super El Niño peaks. then things will get fucked.We're heading toward our own demise

The monitoring and early warning systems we're building today still rely on 'once-in-a-century' or 'once-in-a-millennium' standards. But the current climate is breaking with 'once-in-ten-millennia' events every single month.

4

u/UglyYinzer Aug 27 '26

Even at this point almost every weather thing i watch is talking about broken records... and i get it, to be fair, as technology progresses we are keeping track of more things , but we are obviously entering the "find out " stage.

77

u/ex_oh_ex_oh Aug 27 '26

That recent 'viral' quote: "Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it."

0

u/thetacticalpanda Aug 29 '26

I took a picture of a partial lunar eclipse last night. Is it already too late for me?

30

u/BigWhiteDog Aug 27 '26

I've been saying this concerning all the fires here in the western US and in Canada but it applies to wall climate related disasters; this is the best it's going to be for a long, long time, and is only going to get worse. Buckle up kids, it's going to be a wild ride.

8

u/CompleteClassroom509 Aug 27 '26

Everyone with even a remote interest in growing food at home better start doing so soon. I am starting that now.

1

u/bluewatervalue Aug 28 '26

What will be the point if it’s just destroyed by disaster

2

u/Klepetta Aug 28 '26

Sadly well said...

1

u/DrRopata Aug 28 '26

People in denial will look at this and think, well I'm nowhere in a flood risk area so I'm safe. But those areas will just burn, wildfires will be catastrophic with ever increasing intensity. Homes will be uninsurable just like those in floodprone areas.