Is any distance away from a volcano safe? Find out when an eruption causes one of the largest landslides in recorded history on Mount St. Helens. Unbelievable footage is studied and explained. (from Discovery Channel's "Raging Planet")
The photo at 0:27 was of David A. Johnston, a vulcanologist who was only 10 miles away when the eruption happened 13 hours after this photo. He was the first to report the eruption, before it killed him. There was also a photographer named Robert Landsberg who was also a few miles away when it happened. He realized he was already dead, it just hadn't reached him yet, so he rewound the pictures he'd taken of the eruption, put the camera back in it's case and into his backpack, then lay on top of his pack to protect the film as much as possible. This allowed his pictures to actually be developed and provide documentation of the actual eruption to geologists.
For those who may not be aware, the video of the mountainside sliding at 1:17 is partially animated - sort of. The photographer at 0:55 (Keith Ronnholm) took a series of still photos, each several seconds apart, and years later a graphics crew used CG software to "fill in the frames" between Ronnholm's photos to stitch together this smooth timelapse. It's a remarkable job which gives a real-time impression of the devastating scale of the eruption.
To my knowledge there is no actual video footage of the eruption ever recorded. I lived in the vicinity of where this happened. I was 4 years old at the time. I remember being scared out of my mind to the point that I couldn't even sleep some nights. I remember one time my mom came into my room to check on me and I could hear her whisper to my dad I think he's finally asleep. To which I replied I'm still awake! Another time I remember finally falling asleep when it started to get light outside. When the eruption did occur I remember it snowing volcanic ash everywhere as if it were a heavy snow storm. I remember cars getting stranded everywhere because back then most cars used carburetors which were getting clogged with ash.
@@statik47 Thanks for sharing that story, that must have been frightening for a little kid at the time. I live in Australia. There are no active volcanoes here at all and apart from the very, very occasional earth tremor, this country is almost completely seismically inactive. I can't imagine what it must have been like to experience such an event, especially at such a young age!
Wow, I've never seen something like this before, i didn't even knew it was possible, part of the mountain just slides off it's both horrifying and amazing to see
“And you will see the mountains and think them solid, but they shall pass away as the passing away of the clouds. The Work of Allah, Who perfected all things, verily! He is Well-Acquainted with what you do” [an-Naml 27:88]. Allah can blast and scatter the largest and biggest of mountains if He wills, which is what will happen on the Day of Judgement. So return to your Lord and repent before there comes a day where the eyes will stare in horror.
Man, imagine if something like that was captured with modern microphones and cameras, it would be more terrifying than it already is, but if you were actually there it would be insane to look at.
It would be the last thing you ever looked at.. Yeah man it looks like the mountains gonna blow, the mountain you say ? Yeah the volcano man its gonna blow real soon.. I think i'll go up there for a look.. LOL. What a complete and utter moron.
My father, being a true dad, took me camping at the base of Mt. St. Helens about a month before it blew. He was not particularly worried. 🤣 I was quite young, but distinctly remember seeing a large herd of elk in the forest.
I was in Victoria B.C when this happened. We are 200 miles away. I was in my bedroom and there was a huge rumble. The whole house seemed to have been hit by a truck or something. I got out out of my bedroom and my sister had also left her bedroom. She looked really scared. I thought it might have been a nuclear bomb. I wont forget that day.
I was in bed in Victoria too. The booms scared me and I thought could it be a bomb, or maybe just naval exercises across the harbour, but there had never been any before, and so early on a Sunday morning? that didn’t make sense… then the curtains really billowed inward, twice, on a windless day with the window partially open. Very spooky. Then next day cleaning all the volcanic dust off my car. I try not to think about what Yellowstone will be like “😢”
@@bigguy7353 Well... because it was a landslide caused by an eruption. Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, but the tsunami is still a tsunami. Edit: Correction; the order of events at St Helens seems to have been: Earthquake -> Landslide -> Eruption, meaning it was a landslide before it was an eruption!
Look up Doggerland, it use to be a land connecting England to main land Europe but was flooded by a massive underwater landslide on the coast of Norway.
My grandparents lived in Battleground, just south of Mt. St. Helens. We were up actually looking at it when she unloaded. My grandfather’s exact words not five minutes before she blew was, “I wonder if she blows today..?” I was 12 years old. It’s still one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
I remember have watching about when you feel something is wrong and need to get out of the area, and in that episode, a father and his son was camping in the area of the Mont, the kid feel something bad because he was Very close to nature, so they Go home and the mont explode moment after they get the roda for their home
Actually the Red Zone had few deaths. Truman, some geologists. This was _much_ worse than expected, lateral blast not taken into account. Many died who were 20 MILES away - thought to be 100% safe. Scymanky for one. His 3 coworkers died.
I was on a school bus with classmates on a field trip. Ash started falling, the day turned pitch black and we were stranded for 3 days. No chaperones, just a busload of kids and the band director. I'm thankful for the Red Cross to this day.
I watched it all from my parents back field. I was five years old and it's still by far the most memorable and incredible experience I've had with the power of nature.
Cyrus Hyrum if I had seen the eruption myself I would have thought I was just seeing things I saw Mt.Saint Helen s in full for the last time in February 1980 on a visit to The Pacific Northwest
@@cltracy2921 if I had seen the eruption myself I would have thought I was just seeing things in February 1980 on a visit to The Pacific Northwest I saw Mt. Saint Helen s in full for the last time
My Nana, who lives in Southwest Virginia, says she remembers a very light dusting of ash on her car after the eruption. It's scary how much volcanic material is blasted into the atmosphere when one of these dormant giants explodes with rage.
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@@meepbeep2464 Will you go to Heaven when you die? Here’s a quick test: Have you ever lied, stolen, or used God’s name in vain? Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If you have done these things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart, and the Bible warns that one day God will punish you in a terrible place called Hell. But God is not willing that any should perish. Sinners broke God’s Law and Jesus paid their fine. This means that God can legally dismiss their case: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Then Jesus rose from the dead, defeating death. Today, repent [turn away from your sins and don’t practice them] trust Jesus, and God will give you eternal life as a free gift. Then read the Bible daily and obey it. God will never fail you.
If you've never been to see the mountain, and have an opportunity to, go see it. The viewpoint just below the visitor center is a great place to really take in the scale of the mountain. It doesn't look nearly as large as it is especially from the south. Staring down the barrel of the gun, so to speak, it can truly be appreciated
I wasn't old enough to be someone who could say, "I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot." However, I was old enough to remember where I was and what I was doing when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I was in Woodinville, Washington, north of the mountain about 130 miles away. I was visiting my cousins and we were in the den watching tv when there was a light tremor and the news flash came on showing the eruption. We sat shocked by the awesome display of natural power and chaos that came on the screen. Luckily, we missed the worst of the ash cloud due to wind patterns, but we did get a light dusting over the course of the week. Mt. St. Helens was the main topic of interest for the rest of the year and then some. A year later, I visited Castlerock, Washington just 20 miles from the mountain for a festival the town held for surviving the event. It was quite sobering.
I remember where I was when Kennedy was shot. I was in 7th grade gym class and Mr. Charcola came in and said "The president has been shot. School is being dismissed. Go to your lockers. Get your belongings. The buses are waiting outside to take you home." Nobody said he had died. A girl on the bus was crying, saying he was dead and we all ridiculed her. "They didn't say he was dead, just that he'd been shot." But she was right and we were wrong.
For nature...this is all effortless. There is no exertion involved in the happening of such phenomena. Gravity constantly drives one continental shelf against another. The result in powerful earthquakes that tumble dwellings and structures that took hundreds if not thousands of hours to construct in a matter of seconds.
Live in the Yakima valley. I was planting corn that day, it never was able to come up thru all the ash. Disked the field to mix in the ash and replanted. The ash was so rich, had a bumper crop. A lot of machinery was ruined because the ash was so fine and sharp. The next winter made several trip up there to snowmobile. You were on six feet or more of snow, all above the blown down timber. Made a number of trips before it all regrew up. One trip we made it quite a way up the mountain itself. Like many others won’t forget that day.
Two men died to bring us this amazing footage. Makes me wanna shed tears of joy Edit: I know that its not footage but really just photos, still god bless these people
i see st. helens every day from my neighborhood, and i've visited it quite a few times on field trips and stuff. it's insane how beautiful it is despite the devastation it faced. it's so green and lush in the spring, and the ape caves are so strange and fascinating. i wanna go camp up there someday.
I remember being in school and watching it erupt with my class when I was 9 years old. 1980 was a big year for crazy and bad things to happen - Mt. St Helens eruption, John Lennon getting shot, Terry Fox running the Marathon of Hope and dying before he completed it, I got to shake his hand.
@@JayTheTruth It wasn't like he dropped dead during a one day marathon - he was running across Canada to raise money for cancer research since he lost his leg to it. He made it like 4,000 miles, but his cancer relapsed and appeared in his lungs forcing him to stop. He died months later.
That mountain just decided to stretch it's legs out. The sheer weight of the entire northern side of a mountain makes me think that that shouldn't be possible. Baffling.
Bill Nye: "It is known fact that it takes millions and billions of years for these kinds of geological changes to occur." Mount St. Helens: "Hold my beer!"
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I lived in Sunnyside Washington when Mt. St. Helens made an ash of herself. That was the end of the school year and we were getting ready for graduation. When the ash cloud passed over the Yakima Valley the sun hit the ash cloud at just the right angle and it looked like a rolling river of blood.
I had a similar experience thier was a wildfire miles from where I live and the smoke traveled down the mountain pass toward our town and the sky and color outside was bloodred the town had a movie filter on it, an apocalypse, or hellfire and brimstone
@@GinoNL , he made a pun by changing one word of a common idiom from ass to ash. (Ass being an impolite animal and ash being the volcano's so obviously he was implying the volcano was being impolite). www.google.com/search?q=idiom+make+an+ass+of+yourself
"The public was shocked by the extent of the eruption, which had lowered the elevation of the summit by 1,313 feet (400 m), destroyed 230 square miles (596 km2) of woodland, and spread ash into other states and Canada. The lateral blast that killed Johnston started at 220 miles per hour (354 km/h) and accelerated to 670 miles per hour (1,078 km/h)." According to USGS Scientists, the top of the volcano basically became plugged and the pressure started to bulge out of the side. I think an earthquake triggered the event by loosening the ground and the pressure did the rest and ended up laterally erupting out the side of the volcano rather than straight up. Imagine how much land it would take to destroy 230 SQUARE Miles. Now imagine it is moving towards you at 670 miles per hour. That's hard to put in perspective. The cruising speed of a 747 is 570 mph. I agree. Just a land slide. LOL
I’ve been out there. It was cool actually getting to go to the Observatory. It varies literally day to day if you can go or not because you’re sooo close to it. I think still like roughly nine miles away though
I remember the days leading up to and then after the eruption, the network news teams were getting interviews with scientists, park rangers, campers and a few residents. Two I remember. 1. A man who'd been camping by the mountain was buried under several feet of ash and mud when his car, traveling at 90 mph was overtaken by the mud. They know he was doing 90 because he was passed by a guy doing 110, who just made it out. 2. A guy in his 70s was interviewed about his refusal to leave. "I was born here, raised here, spent my whole life here. I ain't leaving." They found him weeks later. A rescue dog, a German Shepard, smelled him under 5 feet of mud. The rangers kept digging and digging and not finding anything. "Are you sure boy? You smell something?" And the dog kept giving all the signs. Finally they found him. The dog said "Told ya!"
Nobody: ATalkingBadger: *people who use this meme are morons and idiots because meme usage totally shows people's IQ levels and I'm not just some triggered douche*
I was 11 or 12 and mowing the lawn in Eastern Washington when it went off. The sky got gray and ash came down eventually covering the lawn with about an inch of ash. Some places in E Wa (Ritzville, for example) had ash on the ground for several years. It was hysterical to me that people were actually selling it.
I'm in Washington state and remember sunbathing when it got cloudy. All this stuff started falling on me so I went inside. My parents were out of town towards Chewelah and weren't allowed to come home. My grandfather came and got me and explained what had happened. It was a weird thing to experience. Ash was all over everything for years.
It's at this point that you realize that mountain and the pile of sand you made at the beach are scarily similar, just on different scales. To the forces of a massive earthquake and eruption its just a bunch of little grains of rock.
@@zzodysseuszz depends on which version you are perceiving. I use it in reference to the fact that the same processes take place at all scales in the universe, from the microscopic to the macrocosmic. In that context it very much applies to this comment.
Both my parents watched this unfold and remember it distinctly. Mum was in school and my dad, bein the mad lad he kinda is, watched relatively closely, but not close enough to be in danger. Absolutely unbelievable, and even after the collapse the mountain is still a sight to see today. Summitting it back in 2013 is a fond memory of mine :3
So he was like twenty miles from it? That's safe bit still could be danger. Anyone believing this guy needs to look at how far all the debris, ash and smoke travelled and how fast.
On that Sunday morning .... May 18, 1980.......I was standing on a ridge top overlooking Auburn Washington.......looking to the south and watching Mt. St. Helen spew earth and ash thousands of feet into the atmosphere. It's a sight I'll never forget.
You know what I find weird? the sound effects - If you've ever seen these things for real, you'll know that it's the silence that's chilling, that it's so big that the sound hasn't even reached you yet.
I played college football and our school played WSU in Pullman in September of 1980. The field under the turf was really hard. I was told the ash reigned down on the field, they tried to hose it off and it basically turned to concrete.
I was 17 y/o on a golf course that morning about 75 miles away nursing a hangover when i looked over and saw a ginormous plume shooting into the stratosphere.. St. Helens had blew its top!... coolest thing i have ever seen
I lived near there when I was a child remember my mom wrapping a scarf around my face from all the ash in the air as we were evacuating every time I smell sulfur it triggers a memory of that day.
Jeremy, I lived in Glanoma when it blew, you were close too if you remember the sulfur smell. Did you get the mud too? Thanks for sharing. I lived just 4 miles north of the blown down trees. The ground was shaking, thunder and lighting from these big bellowing dark clouds of ash. It rained down 4 inches of hot stinky smelling mud, then we had a foot of ash on top of that. It knocked out our power and we could not see the flower box out the window. 3 1/2 hours later we could see the cows still out in the pasture. Amazing they survived. If it would have blown the next day, Monday, I would be dead. It took over 4 months to get to the logging equipment where we were working.
My dad's cousin lives right behind Mount St. Helen, it erupted on his 5th birthday and he was able to watch it from his back porch- it was pretty cool to see when we visited
@Hank Bridges I think you missed my point. You called it a squirral. It was a chipmunk. I'm not denying it's a dead chipmunk, but it's not a dead squirrel.
"Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it! Vancouver, is the transmitter on?" David Johnston's last words. He wasn't even supposed to be there that day, and I cannot imagine Carolyn Driedger's survior's guilt.
Remember this like it was yesterday. At one time,it was a common thing to climb to the summit.then one day the summit decided to disappear in one cataclysmic moment. The forces of the earth are terrifying but majestic
Having lived in Washington my entire life... I actually guess I didn't realize people in other parts of the world aren't aware of the insane volcano mountain that literally blew its top. It's a beautiful snowy mount right now, I can't imagine not seeing it every day.
I saw this live & in person. It was astonishing. There was an old man named Harry Truman that lived in a cottage on Spirit Lake at the foot of Mt. St. Helen's that they tried to get to leave. He refused & they took off. I'm sure they will find him perfectly preserved in a few hundred years.
I remember it well. I lived in Southern California at the time and we had ash falling and blowing. Live footage was on the news. A few years later I went to the site and the devastation was horrible. Whole hillside of timber were flattened as if they were matchsticks. Amazing...
I remember it as well. I lived in Portland, OR and I remember going outside with my parents. There was a thick layer of ash in our front yard and on top of our car. It was so deep that I thought it had snowed. I was only five years old and remember trying to make a snowball out of the ash and my mother forcing me to throw it down. I wish I had saved some of it. I had a ball of volcanic ash in my hand, a literal piece of geological history, and I threw it away.
@@shayaankhan2578 the magma chamber couldn't properly vent excess gas and molten rock, so the northern side of the mountain literally bulged out as this gas built up more and more from the magma moving underneath. Finally, it collapsed under its own weight after a small earthquake, which then led to the lateral blast that sterilized the countryside for miles.
@ Sharon McCann I was 14 years old, living Detroit when this happened. The blast was so powerful from Mt. St. Helens that Detroit got some of the ash from the eruption.
I wasn't born yet (1989) when this happened, but I wish I couldn't seen it. I live in Southern Colorado and people said that it just got a little hazy over here.
