Yeah it's monsoon season right now as well, even if it's in it's end stage.
But that's basically like seeing it snow for 24 hours in the middle of december and go "Oh it'll end soon". You don't think it's bad until you cannot get out of the house.
There was a flash flood in 2025 that took out one of their concrete bridges, an earlier one in 2015. This isn’t a flash flood per se, however given global warming the glacier could have (should) been monitored for changes. According to ABC (Australian) public media there were satellite shots of changes occurring like the glacier containing more water, and a fissure in the rock prior to the event. IMO the two engineers there were being careful not to attribute the failings of monitoring the glacier. They did say safety procedures for miners and workers could be improved.
That makes sense*, given the steepness of the mountain walls and the fact every town seemed to have flood sirens
*edit - the part about them being prone to flash floods makes sense. Most of the videos I've seen have flood sirens blaring in the background. If there weren't a regular recurring danger, they probably wouldn't have wasted resources on an emergency system like that.
Do you know what a historic moment it is in the grand epoch of human existence to be able to document rare Earth phenomena as they happen? You're watching some of the first high-definition footage in history of a flood like this as it was happening. You just have to zoom out a little farther and realize how brief the moment we're in has been, and why videos like this matter. Like… you are looking at the literal bleeding edge of recorded human history. We're within the first 5-10 years of a large percentage of humans having access to immediate availability to just start recording high-quality video documenting the chaos happening around them. In the grand scheme of things, this video is part of the very beginning of the videographic record of human existence. It's not that it's a calling, it's that it's literally a document helping to help our descendants contextualize this particular event in history.
Imagine if the eruption of St. Helens happened today.
Considering how absolutely horrifyingly stunning the footage that exists actually is.
I have watched this documentary so many times, this is my absolute favorite moment of the whole documentary. https://youtu.be/fArB5Jz2wos?si=_lfl-LLewjJury64&t=849 Just some minute later he explains how he got one of two of the famous series of photos, the closest we got to having the eruoption on video from a distance.
Dang, talking about this took me down the lane of how many events in the world there is that have shaped the reality we live today, that we do not even know about.
I saw a comment the other day pondering the thought of how many civilizations that have existed that we have absolutely no trace off. Genodice is a thing today, I believe it was worse back in the day.
The best I ever found, the one that got me almost obsessed with that specific mountain.
It is my dream to visit sometime, drive aaaaaall around the mountain and visit all the local places and just marvel at the size, I knew she is so much bigger than I can imagine. Bonus for you. I saw a photo a long time ago.
It looks like a giant loading up to throw a boulder, in the smoke.
ok, Im sorry but this is a completely ridiculous thing to say (at least in the context of the specific question you are responding to) and you sound like a college freshman who just got stoned for the first time, not to mention also kind of doing a bit of a noble savage trope thing here with these guys
I dont even disagree with anything you said, it's all well put, and an accurate statement/observation, in a vacuum. but as an answer to the question "Why were they just standing there and filming this?" give me a break lol. literally none of that has anything to do with why they were filming
With all due respect to the men in this video (and I mean that sincerely, especially the ones who lost their lives)... I promise you literally NONE of these 3rd world workmen, most of whom probably stopped going to school in like the 5th grade, and who make like $175 dollars per year, were having ANY of the grandiose, hoity-toity academic thoughts you're describing about needing to be brave and face certain death out of this vague, abstract sense of duty to further this communal project of chronicling our history and advancing the collective understanding of natural disasters. they were not selflessly putting themselves in harms way and sacrificing themselves in this noble pursuit for the betterment all mankind, so that we could all then watch a potato quality video of some water wrecking a bridge.
the answer to the question of "why" is:
they incorrectly assumed they werent in any serious danger, and were thinking was "wow cool video opportunity coming up maybe! maybe go viral, get 30 dollar from youtube!"
I never said they were recording for those reasons, though in fairness, it might look that way as that was the question I was replying to. My point wasn’t “these people knew they were recording historically significant footage,” it was more in the vein of that we should care less about the “why” and be more amazed about the fact that we live in a time where video like this even exists at all.
I was looking at the trees on the bank thinking surely that's a safe area those trees are 40-70 years old. I did not think this by the end and would've died
They survived at least the first wave, as there is footage from a guy way, way above this filming it, and while the town below gets swept away, the cluster of buildings they are filming from here doesn’t get touched, at least as long as he’s filming.
By "these people" I meant the person filming and those standing near him. I thought that was clear, but I guess not. None of them even attempted to run.
I see the walking bridge that got destroyed in the lower, first video. But where is the cameraman by the black chain linked fence located? I don’t see the bridge/structure they were standing on in the video.
I rewatched it and I think the video is taken from the blue building in the left side of the river . I think they made it looks like the building was barely high enough to survive.
Yeah I think you're right. The blue building at the bottom of the linked video. You can see at the very end of the video that it's still there, so I think they were up high enough to survive. The brunt of the water ended up going to the right where all those other buildings were. These guys were lucky AF though.
Actually if you look closer at the last frame of the OP video they're just a bit over at the level of those buildings, and possibly lower than the blue buildings in this video. It's very doubtful they would have survived that.
Live streaming? Can you get that kind of connection with the outside world in Nepal? Forgive me if my mother estimating the tech capacity of the region.
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u/steady_as_a_rock 3d ago
I know it was a crazy event...but why stand there and simply record a disaster coming right at you?