What do you think of this one? should they have been allowed onto that volcano that day? Previous in the series : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9rJLQqGlUDY.html
Don't tempt mother nature and you might live a little longer than normal . Yes there should have been warnings posted about the recent activity . But would that have stopped or deterred every one or anyone for that matter? Any day you wake up could be your last . Don't Hike active volcanoes is my best advice .
I- Wha- It's a volcano. It's an ACTIVE volcano. Everyone seems to have known that and decided to clambor around on it anyway. Nature is not benevolent and mankind has a record of both failing to predict and react appropriately to it.
How many people didn’t think that Mt. St. Helens was going to be as bad as it was? Even the vulcanologists never though that Mt. St. Helens was going to be as powerful as it was. Thank God they cautioned on the side of error and many lives were saved by that action. This volcano hadn’t erupted since the seventies, as much as we want to, we can’t control nature and it is unfair to think that volcanologist can predict an eruption or how powerful that eruption will be. Think about Mt. Vesuvius, it was erupting for years, it was a common sight to see her erupting, they weren’t afraid of it. Some of the people just left the city and came back when the dust settled., and one day it did the unthinkable. By the time whoever was left in Pompeii, realized that this was a really really bad eruption, it was way to late. Man still can’t predict how powerful an eruption will be.
In defense of the people clutching their smartphones instead of running--I would posit that they knew they were doomed, but wanted to capture as much of what actually happened to them as they could on film. I would do the same, honestly.
I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t myself take a picture AT ALL. However if your at the submit and death will be in seconds then do what ever you want because it’s your last seconds to minutes to live. You choose. No one should criticize their last moments.
I fully agree with this. Judging from the recovered pictures, it was clear that many weren't going to make it. If anything, their decision to show the world what happened in those images only proved that further.
Yeah I agree. it feels unfair to criticize them for that. even if they didn’t take pictures the chance of them surviving from that distance is so slim. I really don’t blame them for wanting to document it. Just like tsunamis, or avalanches, there’s no outrunning that especially if you’re super close to it .
I doubt it, I've seen 20 people videoing a person suffering a medical issue on their 'phone. Not a single fucker thought 'hey, maybe I ought to call an ambulance...'
I understand being upset and wanting to blame someone, but it's a known active volcano. The explanation given by the scientists after the fact is more than enough to tell why they didn't shut anything down. I do feel horrible for the victims, though, knowing what those last minutes must have been like.
As someone who lives near Mt. St. Helens, I feel like they should've closed the area out of an abundance of caution when they found the volcano was more restless than usual, starting a week and a half before. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our volcanoes are active and of the explosive kind, but there are regular updates about all the movement around our volcanoes and any other significant developments. Even if they didn't close the trails, we would know if the volcanoes had been more active lately to make informed decisions. If they judge there to be any sort of significant risk, they close the area. I do not feel unsafe hiking our on volcanoes with all the monitoring we have these days at all, because volcanoes -- even hydrothermal explosions like this one -- make themselves known. It seems that Japan does update the public about volcanic conditions regularly, though I don't know how these warnings are distributed (signs at trailheads? newscasts?). However, I think the failure was in their alert ranking system, because they knew that there was an elevated risk of eruption, but that didn't translate to an elevated alert level. Though they say they couldn't have known it was going to happen, their own records clearly say they were aware of the situation. Admittedly this is translated to English, but from the Japanese government's own website, "September 11, 2014 10:20 Japan Meteorological Agency Earthquake and Volcano Department ... The number of volcanic earthquakes exceeded 50 in a day for the first time since January 25, 2007. ... At Mt. Ontake, a very small eruption occurred in 2007 in the 79-7 crater and since there is a possibility of eruption of volcanic ash etc. to the extent that it affects the surrounding area, Please stay vigilant. Since seismic activity has increased, please pay attention to changes in volcanic activity. ... We will keep you informed of any changes in volcanic activity. " The next day's report says that this is the first time since the last eruption that they'd had 80 in a day. They clearly knew there was an increased risk of eruption at this point. They harken back to the last time this much movement happened in a day, and the fact that preceded an eruption. On the 12th, they said that the movement is of low amplitude and that no changes had been noticed in the crust the next day, but they also said they couldn't comment on the presence or absence of a plume due to cloud cover. I don't know how their system works, but to me this clearly demonstrates a deficiency in it. If they knew the same level of movement led to an eruption in the past, that should have been enough for them to issue a closure or at least upgrade the alert level they issue to the public. It seems like erring on the side of safety is a good idea with volcanoes. And considering this was the report 16 days before the eruption, I don't buy the excuse that they didn't have time to manage closures before people had already started up the mountain. Admittedly, however, I could be missing a lot due to the language barrier in articles and reports, and I don't know the whole story. I just feel like the people who were shocked that this could happen in the modern world with our constant monitoring of volcanoes had a right to be.
@@Tser A lot of it is it's _literally_ unknowable at this point if it's just some unrest or something that can lead to an eruption. Volcanoes all around the world are active in various different ways. A select few seriously do erupt with very, very little actual warning. Something that looks like just another day of a small swell is suddenly exploding out the top (literally). Most places around the world have _some_ kind of water table. It's not exactly unheard of for magma to interact with it! I fear the public would blindly blame scientists for failing to warn them when only a conspiracy theorist level of paranoia would lead scientists to tell people to gtfo an active volcano that's merely shaking a little. Sure, they very likely should've informed people better that the unrest was happening, I'm all for more easily digested information. Though how many people would have changed their plans? Like expecting people to cancel their camping trip while they're in the parking lot just because the fire watch level is red... Wise? Yes. Though how many people are wise?
@@ashkebora7262 But the geologists where I live DO close trails when the volcano shows any unusually high amounts of unrest and posts warnings. I am not a geologist, but I don't think they're paranoid. Mt. St. Helens has erupted multiple times in my lifetime and I feel very safe hiking on it because of how proactive the USGS and forest service are about it. Also as an outdoors-obsessed person, I live in an extremely wildfire-prone area, and yeah, our government also issues high risk days for wildfire warnings which we heed... we get alerts called red flag warnings. They close parks and trails to camping and hiking when those are issued.
@@Tser Yeah, these days we have pretty decent policies to at least inform people, and usually shut things down if it's too dangerous. Those policies came about because of accidents like this one. I wish it didn't have to happen in the 21st century but then, there are people who _constantly_ rail against regulation at all costs, even the ones written in blood...
@@ashkebora7262 Yeah. When I first started watching this video I thought it must've been quite a while ago that it happened, and was surprised it was so recent, after so many similar events that taught us along the way. It seems that the people touched by this disaster felt the same -- how did this happen now? With so many records showing exactly what this meant? I read some studies today analyzing the harmonic tremors preceding both the 2007 Mt. Ontake eruption and this one, in 2014. The similarities noticed earlier that September that raised the alarm (just not high enough) were confirmed as similar. I do think you have the right of it. I believe that in this and many other disasters around the world, governments are reluctant to raise the alert level or an alarm, or close an area, because of the disruption it will cause to the economy, or the unrest of those who chafe under regulation. Unfortunately, the resulting disaster, if downplayed, has time and time again caused far more disruption in the aftermath. One just gets very tired of hearing the same story over and over, when we could have learned from so many of these events previously. Close to home, I worry that my local government is not taking the inevitability of the coming Cascadia mega-earthquake seriously enough. It's too vague and "in the future" to warrant enough attention, though we know full well it will happen, and how devastating it will be.
Unfortunately, phreatic eruptions like the one that occurred that day are unlike regular volcanic eruptions and are extremely hard to predict. They often occur without warning, with the only signs sometimes coming only hours or even minutes before it’s too late. Because of this there was almost no way the experts could have known what was going to happen. Sure, the volcano was experiencing heightened unrest, but a volcano like ontake has periods of that very often and most never lead to anything. So unlike White Island where there had been very clear signs the island was unsafe, on that day Ontake looked perfectly normal.
You're absolutely right. Phreatic eruptions are "steam explosions." All volcanos have water inside...very minor quakes or "tremblors" can, at ANY time, open up a crack in the mountain. Pockets of water can then fall through the crack - BAM! Straight onto hot rocks, or molten lava. Steam takes up more space than water - so the expolsions are some of the most powerful on Earth. You cannot predict this. You can nearly always tell a phreatic from a magmatic eruption by cloud (plume) color. Phreatics are "salt and pepper" colored. White + black. White is the steam, black/grey is the ash. (Although sometimes they mix together to form light grey.)
If only they could close off the volcano, people would still venture either way. And no way to know the destruction it would cause since it could happen in an instant.
@@gkess7106 How does one wind up going to an island without even looking up anything about it? I find it hard to believe that information on the location wouldn't have included at least some mention of the volcano.
What signs were there that White island was unsafe? Do you know of any video to watch for that? I've seen the docco and several videos on it but none that analyze the warning signs.
Today, 17. January, the 28. Anniversary of the great earthquake in Hanshin, I watch this video. I'm from Nagano, not far from Ontake. I can remember the earlier small eruption of Ontake when I was a child. I played in the garden with mud and saw something like white powder come down from the sky. The big eruption was a really horrible accident so near to my hometown...
They were damned if they did damned if they didn't. I remember the governor of Washington got a ton of backlash for creating an exclusion zone around Mt st Helen's. People protested it and raised hell. Then after it turned out it was too small everyone raised hell that it wasn't bigger. I'm an avid hiker but I leave any active volcano off my list!
@@yaobikuni1349 They did have some seismic activity. But they didn't think it was caused by this, instead they thought it was caused by a minor fluctuation of magma. Little did they know, it wasn't.
@@aubreyhuff46 well, that or some of the regular seismic activity that is just a part of living in Japan. Those minor "tremblors" happen quite a bit. People don't even notice them but they are picked up by monitors. This is the same all along the ring of fire- it's really just part of life there. But another thing they said was that even if they had somehow gotten earlier warning that day- which they didn't because those others were several days before- it's unlikely that someone would have made it to the top and been able to conduct everything needed to test for everything before it happened. After all,mthe trail is 9 miles and guides say it takes about 6.5 hours to hike to the summit. They wouldn't have even gotten there if someone had left the minute work started that morning.
I kinda think you’re being a bit too critical at the end. Even if they did let people know, I doubt many would’ve paid it mind. Not for the chance to see a beautiful annual event. We humans kinda suck in that regard
Phreatic eruptions are much harder to predict because we can't directly measure what's going on in the magma chamber. What the public don't understand (or don't _want_ to understand) is that _nature is unpredictable_ - volcanologists & meteorologists are in a no-win situation, especially in a place like Japan where earth tremors are an everyday occurrence. If they warn people off & nothing happens, people stop listening to their warnings... if something like this happens, people demand to know why they _didn't_ know & warn everyone. It's absolutely tragic, but any time you go hiking on an active volcano it's a risk. RIP to the victims 🤍
Those concrete protection pods remind me of the archways in Herculaneum where they found tons of peoples bodies crowded, where they tried to seek shelter from Vesuvius
@@shinrapresident7010 like I said I got my own personal proof that it all exists and som.But for you that would be a different story this would be by far beyond your wildest imagination but hey you would be like my dad youse to say can't see it till you believe it..btw..thanks God bless
@@rubydragon1034 like i said i have my own personnal proof that it all exist far beyond anyone on mother earth like you wouldnt believe.Now since i have my own personnal proof,well here it is i have seen GOD in the light that would make your head spin right out of this freackin world.and GOD looks like,he is "strong light energy matter" "kind of like lightning" and .that supernatural experience like many others i have had i will take that to my grave until my last dying days and nobody i mean nooooo freacking body will tell me otherwise kapiche btw..thanks and god bless
@@rubydragon1034 okay all the proof that you need is when you take your last breathe on mother earth.from there you cross over to another world (the darkworlds) and if that aint proof than i dont know what is haha lol..thanks god bless
Warning systems still have a long way to go. Where I live we just had a 6.5 a couple weeks ago and the alarm didn't go off until about ten seconds after the quake already hit. I wound up yelling "yeah, no kidding" at my phone and I'm really glad those weren't my final words.
Im from Chile, south america, and my country is in the same ring of earthquakes as Japan. Its crazy we share that lol. Random note, i survived a 8.8 Earthquake in 2011 (or was it 2010?).
What even was that like? 8.8 🤯 I don't live where earthquakes happen but I've always wondered what that must feel like. Btw nod to Chile- A dream trip of mine is to go visit some observatories in the Atacama. (I'll never be able to but I still dream lol)
@@colormetakenaback it depends a lot on where you live, but as someone who was on a 14th floor when it happened it is not (that) bad. I can't help but describe the feeling as a swing like motion, but buildings around here are made to do that since it's safer (because we do have a lot of earthquakes) so you are adviced not to panic and wait for it to stop before evacuating as there is risk of aftershocks. Fun fact: most people won't evacuate unless it is a 6+!
@@barbaratapia3528 I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it 😨 I think I would die of fear if the building I was in started "swinging." I used to get nauseous when the spin cycle on my washing machine turned on when I lived in a 2 storey wood frame house lol.
@@almibryI’m also from chile, the first time can be quite traumatic, but after that you get used to it because you have learnt to trust the buildings. The skyscrapers are built to swing because if they didn’t they would crumble, so it’s actually quite good that they move like a limp noodle when there’s sysmic movement.
I think anyone who took photos or videos of this then curled up to die clutching their phone was likely trying to preserve the evidence of what happened to them and others for their families and the media. So sad but amazing they spent their last seconds of life making sure the world knew what happened, they are heros for doing that.
Oh, for sure! They most definitely wanted to go down with their fate known and recorded. Judging by the photos, there's no way they could have known if they would survive or not. Their final decision provided a glimpse of the tragedy firsthand for the world to truly understand what happened.
Exactly. You are not going to ourrun a pyroclastic flow. There is similar footage of mount st Helen's eruption. The photographer knew he wouldn't get out. So he photographed the flow approaching and then tucked over the camera to protect it. He died but his photos survived and told his story.
If there are a bunch of people focused on filming and you might still have time to get to a safer spot- let them film if they want to… but get out while you still can! It is a reasonable approximation that most of those who survived were focused on surviving, most of those who died were not. This was not Mount Saint Helens- several hundred people survived. 63 people are thought to have died. How many similar videos of the event do we need, anyway?
In years before cameras people faced with situations like this don’t always react immediately. Lots of folks seemingly need a few seconds to process what they’re seeing, and what it means for action. I reckon plenty of the folk filming that day fell into that category. A great loss of good people.
I mean in defense of those who took pictures, it's not like they were going to be able to outrun the ash clouds regardless. If anything their pictures contribute more to understanding of these natural events, as tragic as it may be.
I really like your narration, it's very clear and really sympathises with the victims too. I had never heard of this disaster before, thank you for sharing It. It's a terrifying scenario I can't even imagine how they must have felt while waiting for rescue in those houses. It reminds me slightly of the white island/wakari disaster that happened only in 2019
The footage of the eruption is fkn powerful to see. Even for how well your narration is that footage really makes you understand that you are not running away. You will survive if fate allows and that’s it
This. I find it horrible that they blamed the people who were up there, as though they just chose to stay put and take pictures. Look at the pictures that were taken - they didn’t choose that, they were just photographing their deaths. Or possibly trying to create light with the flash?? It just looks horrible and inescapable.
@@pembrokelove When the narrator said they wasted precious few seconds taking pictures when they should've been running for their lives? Dumbest thing I've heard in this entire video.
It's super sad but honestly I doubt people would've rescheduled their trips if they had been notified about the seismic activity. If you live around a lot of it, I imagine those reports wouldn't mean anything to any lay person if the next thing that followed was still, "the reports weren't significant enough to breech the threshold for the next level." No one thinks a disaster is going to happen to them, the reports wouldn't have given reason to change that
@@bravo795mp you also stay at home if in raining and not work? because statically you more likely to die during commute in rain than die because of volcanic eruption.
As a geology and volcanology nerd here, we can for ever study Volcanoes and truly get to know them well…but they will ALWAYS still be one step head. Nature is repetitive but not always.
Blame the Gov all you want, but yall walked up a volcano...an active volcano. Walk to a place your life is endangered and then complain when you get hurt or die is quite silly. You don't have to go and if you do take responsibility for your choice of risks.
If you hike an active volcano, then you take a very high risk of it erupting at anytime. I'm so sorry for the victims and their families. Even with all the knowledge of scientists these days, we still can't determine 'How, What, When, and Where' natural disasters will strike.
Mt Rainier, Shasta, St. Helens are all active volcanoes. Yet people hike them and/or camp on them every day. So these folks weren't doing something unusual.
@dennismcconnell4222 We've managed to develop advanced warning and tracking systems for hurricanes, tornadoes, and other kinds of storms with said science, it's just simply that volcanoes are a completely different story entirely, and it's a miracle we have any internal info on them at all. So yes, it's perfectly reasonable to trust science, as even though it's far from perfect, it's leagues better than uneducated guesswork.
yup the chance of eruption is same as wining something on lottery if it hasne erupted on 100 years and it erupts every 200 years the cnace maybe be around 1/40 000 that day -so why try even , andrenalin junkies ?
As already pointed out, there are many active volcanos that people hike regularly. Active doesn't mean what you likely think it does. It's extremely rare for most of them to erupt, and very low risk to hike them. This is a once in many lifetimes event.
And just look at what happened in New Zealand just some years ago, can’t remember which year but it was really not all that long ago. Volcanoes, or angry mountains as I like to call them, are some seriously scary things! Glad I don’t have any active ones anywhere near me (I live in Sweden) because even with all the technology today, there’s just no knowing for certain if and when a volcano just decides to blow. Not all eruptions have clear warnings before they happen after all
I can't imagine standing at the summit, to witness such brutal force of nature.. Yet, I couldn't conceive myself pulling out my phone to document it either. What an insane story. I'd never heard of this before. Great writing and narration, Ryan. You do these videos with the utmost respect for those affected, while maintaining (and continuously improving) the production quality of your work. So, thanks for another informative and interesting video, Ryan! I hope the new years celebrations were awesome, and that 2023 will see your channel grow to hit at least 500K subs. You've gained 33K since that 100K episode - so I'd say you're well on your way! :) I'll be here to comment on the next one, as always! Take it easy!
I know he said they "lost precious moments they should have been running for their lives" but my guess is that those who were taking pictures as it came closer could see they had nowhere to go and knew what was going to happen. Of course instinct is usually to run/fight anyway but if you know the last shelter you saw was a mile back up the trail and you see this cloud of ash quickly descending, you don't have to be a genius to know that you're not even close to going to make it. Especially those who could feel the heat as they saw the ash cloud. They knew it would get worse and I guess figured they'd leave something for the people who found their things to know what they'd seen/what it was like. RIP folks. That couldn't have been easy. I have some breathing issues and some days it feels like I struggle a bit to breathe. I can only imagine how terrifying it was for that ash to get thicker and still trying to breathe enough to live.
@@mommy2librasit might of been too late at that point to escape. Some might of had just a few moments to spend it doing something calming vs freaking out.
@@mommy2libras I think modern man has rewired itself a bit to pull out phones at the first sign of unusual activity. I think we could use some training on when to drop everything and run. Recognizing danger seems to be a trait we are losing in such a interconnected era. I don't think any of them knew....not in those first three or four min.
It's tragic that people died, but if they'd closed the mountain months earlier, people might've started going up there again anyway, because the eruption "never came". The scientists still often have trouble pinpointing exacatly when a "normal" eruption is going to happen, so I don't get how they're supposed to know that a rare type of eruption was about to happen.
hiking on a volcano, but then blame someone else? as horrible as it was, you have to take responsibility for yourself when it comes to nature. nature is unpredictable. it always has been and always will be. thanks for the documentary, i did not know or remember this.
Such is life. You can’t predict everything and you can’t prevent everything. As unfortunate and devastating as it is, it’s what happens. Life has to have good and bad. Sorry for the family’s loss.
unpredictable, dude. phreatic eruptions are impossible to predict -- most of them don't cause a whole lot of tremor - there's almost always a little bit, but not like you'd get from a big magmatic eruption. I live on the side of a volcano, but so far, so good. she's sleeping peacefully. but there's hot springs and such all around up here, so ya know, she might be asleep, but she's nowhere near dormant. White Island was a phreatic eruption, same thing. you could argue they should be a bit better at warning folks, but that kind of eruption is always unpredictable. White Island was so bad cos they were standing inside the main crater when there was a mud and steam eruption while they were inside it. still, enjoyed the vid, learned new things, too. always worth watching so as not to make same mistakes -- Ontake is a lot more active than ours is. not sure I'd have been on that hike!
I'm a huge hiker and if I want to hike a dangerous trail then I am the one assuming that risk. No one is forcing me to do that. Personally I don't blame anyone for it, the hikers are not volcanologists, the volcanologists can't always predict eruptions, it was just a force of nature. And what do you do in that situation? Run down into the path of pyroclastic flows or up towards the eruption? Not a lot of good choices.
An unfortunate incident, but not something authorities should be held accountable for. Volcanoes are unpredictable, and the science of volcanology is still young enough so much so that it's still hard to adequately predict when major eruptions may happen. Look also at what happened in Galeras in Columbia in 1993. Lots of similarities there.
It's hard to imagine massive walls of ash burning and burying you alive, sweeping down the mountain far too fast to outrun. Definitely nightmare fuel. The hikers should have been warned of the seismic activity and the dangers of climbing an active volcano.
If you're smart enough to hike you already know the dangers of climbing around on an active volcano. And people in a region know about their region- you know when you live near an active volcano, even if there hasn't been any activity in many years.
@@mommy2libras Did you see all those hotels, huts, cabins in the footage? Even at the crater? Nothing like this eruption had happened for a VERY long time. Phreatic eruption deaths of tourists, is more rare than people dying when planes land on their cars. Sure, you know, in the back of your mind, pilots _sometimes_ try to land on roads in emergencies...but how often does that happen? You just don't expect that when you get in the car as a real "risk." Tremblors are KNOWN to cause phreatics - the controversy isn't "should the mountain have been closed" due to tremblors, but should the public have been INFORMED of them. You CAN'T make an _informed_ decision about risk - without being informed. I'm sure many would have avoided hiking a volcano on a high-earthquake day. I would have.
I'm from Costa Rica, land of active volcanoes. When they start acting out, throwing fumes and rocks, the access is officially closed. Most are in National Parks.
Hiked up a volcano just last year and thought the same thing watching this. We don't have control over nature. All of our technology and satellites and math and we still describe tomorrow's weather in percentage chances. People think we can figure out what will happen miles underground??
Sometimes there’s no fault in a tragedy. People want to blame something/someone when a tragic event happens. But and act of god as they called it can not be predicted nor is there human fault. Nature has shown us her fierce side. Take heed and know that there is always a risk.
Terrible and sad tragedy. The footage shows us what they went through but it can never compare to the actual horror they all experienced. May those that survived find peace and may those that didn't RIP. That being said.. it's an active volcano.. you are knowingly taking a risk the moment you set foot on it. People always want to blame someone..I get that.. but there is not always someone to blame. I don't care how far we have come and how much technology exists in the end we are still competing with Mother Nature... and she will always do what she wants, when she wants, and we will never be able to control or stop her.
I wouldn't climb a volcano with a recent spike of tremblors. I'd be very hesitant to climb any volcano though idc how "safe" it is (I've only ever hiked 1/3 of a dormant one). I wonder how you would even go about finding that information though. Is there an geologic equivalent to the national weather service? Do you have to look at that specific parks website? Is that data private? I guess I found my next Google hole
I live in Alaska, also on the Ring of Fire, also prone to massive earthquakes (most recently a 7.1 in 2018) and volcanic activity. I have seen my city shut down and covered in ash from nearby eruptions three times. These kinds of events are very hard to predict, even with close monitoring. That’s just the nature of the beast
If u were warned every single time u decided to get into your car to go out that u really should think twice knowing that at any moment an accident which u will have absolutely no control over could end ur life as u know it..., as true and simple this fact is, would it stop u from going?!! Hindsight the great equaliser once again!!
I think the best solution would be to build some more shelters around the mountain/summit and let hikers know where to go if something like this happens again. The eruption that occurred was more difficult to predict but it's easier to protect people from.
I'm glad you're okay! Did u realize it was an earthquake at first? I grew up in some place without earthquakes. So when I moved to California after I'd been there for a couple of months all the sudden in the middle of the night an earthquake hit. The entire house started shaking. And I had no idea what it was. My first thought wasnt earthquake I thought someone was trying to break into the house and was slamming their fists into the giant glass sliding doors we had. So I SPRINTED yelling for my husband and woke him up and it dawned on me it was an earthquake so we got out of the house. It was a pretty small earthquake. But I could literally feel the ground rolling beneath my feet. It's hard to describe what it feels like but it's feels like you're standing on the ocean and waves are rolling under your feet. Really freaky
@@WhitneyDahlin I live in the UK as well and you barely notice the ones that happen here. The last one I remember happened more than 15 years ago and it was only about 5 on the Richter scale. We do get hundreds every year but they're just to small for most people to feel.
I don't think we can really lay blame as such on this one. It's easy to cry outrage against the authorities when a volcano erupts unexpectedly, and especially when it had trembles and shakes prior, as they all seem to... BUT there's a background level of shaking that ebbs and flows, as it were... It's all "relatively normal" and we're still nearly hopelessly primitive in our understanding of what's going on even a mile or so underground... As a suggestion for the future, and I don't know if Japan (as a government or as a people/whole) are endorsing this or not... SOMEONE should curate the activity around volcanoes and locations known for seismic hazard... At least the unusually dangerous places, from hot springs (that can suddenly scald you to death)... to mud pots, geysers, and full-on volcanoes (of course)... Curate it such that there's ONE big website for travelers and tourists to click into, with a big color coded map showing "zones" of relative high and low activity... Sort of like we put all those symbols and colors on "Weather Maps" for rain or snow or "heavy storms" and the like... AND a few basic symbols for particular hazards suspected... even a number (since we've quantified everything on a scale) for whatever alert level or threat rating as dictated locally by the authority on hand... AND it should be mapped and navigable by phone, so when you're going to a particular place, you can visit THAT PLACE'S PAGE for the general activity "today" and where it fits over the last year, decade, or as far back as is known... AND then even with a "Low Alert Level" you have NUMBERS to take to your own judgment... maybe it DID only raise activity to "bordering but not quite" a Public Alert level of 2... or 3... AND they haven't stepped up the rating yet, because it's not quite there... BUT you can see "irregular temblors at 3-5.3 Richter from the last 48 hours" noted and decide then for YOURSELF... maybe it's building since it normally only has temblors up to about 3 or 4.1... and postpone or change your hiking plans... At the end of the day, having one good place to go for that kind of information/warning system, there's NO MORE EXCUSES for over-reliance on the government and some agency full of people working on tax budgets and thereby likely underfunded, undertrained, and poised as much for bureaucrats to "throw under the bus" when mistakes or miscalculations happen. We're going to continue to miss guesses and estimations. People are GOING to take ill-advised trips to dangerous terrain, and it's not going to matter how much or how loudly we warn them. Taking added actions to inform the public of the nuance and exactly where the government or authorities' advice lands not only grants more personal control over one's own safety as "informed"... It removes the excuse of "Well there wasn't a big red flag on a giant chain link fence with razor wire and angry dogs to keep me OFF the mountains, so I figured it was probably okay, and everyone's just over reacting... How should I have known any better?" Because (at least in the U.S.) big fat signs that warn "You enter at your OWN risk" just don't qualify as sufficient warning that some activity, location, or particular equipment, even garbage, is probably dangerous... ;o)
The geology building where I did my undergrad had a display like that! It was a map of all seismic activity around the world over the last month, with different symbols and color coding to indicate magnitude, date, etc. It definitely wouldn’t have shown anything as small as the tiny tremors in question here, but the concept exists at least. While I definitely think this idea would be a super cool resource, I don’t think it would actually solve much practically (except perhaps helping with legal liability issues). People just don’t know how to interpret that kind of data. Heck, I’m a geologist but I don’t specialize in volcanology, and *I* don’t know how to interpret that kind of data. A website could provide the numbers, but then you have to ask, at what point does an earthquake swarm become alarming? I’d have to do a lot of research on historic trends in a given location, magnitude, depth of earthquakes, etc. to try to answer that, and I don’t think it’s practical to expect people to do that every time they visit a new location. That’s why we’re lucky to have experts who use their knowledge along with the data to make predictions using the best science we have today. They’re not perfect, but they definitely know more than I do :)
@@andromedatonks60 Well, the display at your Geology Building was also Worldwide... and I'm talking about a site for Japan-wide... as it were.. might have a "pin" for the smaller tremor swarms and such... I'd hazard that such a site could be curated with some crowdsourcing for expert opinions on the various lines of alarm or trepidation about historical contexts and raising concerns... Along with the verifications for those experts "actively contributing"... but even links to articles from the regular journals would be something... I've worked with a few volcanologists, but I'm not one, myself. I get that I don't KNOW when to call it "too dangerous", and that I likely would act more conservatively than necessary... BUT it probably wouldn't take long for those experts to take an interest in it if such a site "popped up" and was being curated. Experts LOVE to "talk shop". It's part of what makes them experts... SO they'll have social media ties to followers and students, and in no time, someone will point out such a thing online and they'll start naturally linking and arguing the fine points and adding suggestions for input or experimentation... SO the "Curators" only need embrace the suggestions and feedback, along with a bit of transparency about where it came from (an app that color codes for danger levels on a regional map-set, for instance) and what it's intended to provide or prove... even who suggested it, and credentials for them. In any case, it's JUST a thoughtful suggestion. The idea being that we can remove some of the excuses for people who try to sue when there clearly wasn't anything particularly wrong or egregious... The hope would be that it steadily gets better and more effective over time, but there's no guarantee of that either. ;o)
Yes, this was a 3 on the scale and Vesuvius was a 5 but the scale is logarithmic, Vesuvius wasn't a little bit less than twice as powerful, it was about 100 times as powerful
If a warning is issued and nothing happens, repeatedly over time, people will ignore them anyway. It's a difficult balance and one that is part of the whole risk assessment business
The climbers knew they were on an active volcano. They knew the risk of eruption existed. The climbers suffered a horrific experience, undoubtedly, and it is heartbreaking. However, the decision to dismiss the lawsuit against Japan was correct. MAY ALL THE VICTIMS REST PEACEFULLY.
@@PatriotCody Not really. Think about it. If they were sealed bunkers...where are they getting their air supply from for the people inside? From outside? That would be full of poisonous gases in a pyroclastic flow.
Volcanos are awe-inspiring expressions of nature. Beautiful to sight. They bring about some of the most fertile lands on earth, consequently humans have inhabited these lands for millenia. Any time you decide to live on or visit a volcano( especially an active one) you are at risk of death or injury. Recognize and respect that power and never take your life for granted in its presence. Puts me in mind of Mt. Saint Helen. And they had much more warning.
This reminds me of the signs that are put up during certain weather conditions that warn beach-goers in Florida about rip-tides. Basically, it’s a sign at each public beach entrance that says there is a risk of rip-tide and what to do - swim at your own risk. I think a similar sign saying that this is a volcano with recent activity and here is what to do/where to go ICE - hike at your own risk would have sufficed. That way, people entering the area could make informed decisions about entering or not. I don’t think anyone should be blamed, but I would like to see better signage explaining the danger in the future. Also, I wonder if this impacted how other similar hiking trails near active volcanoes in the country are maintained (e.g., concrete structures, signage, etc)?
Usually a volcano will cause between ten to forty thousand tremors within a twenty four hour period before erupting. With that said, however, a volcano can erupt at any warning level with little to no warning. Case in point Ontake was at level one. It could of been a hell of a lot worse. I was always told you can out pace a red eruption but not a grey eruption. This reminds me of white island near New Zealand
Japan: Let's use concrete to protect us in pyroclastic flows! Greece and Italy: *confused anime faces* Uhm... yeah... that makes our "8 hours to evacuate Santorini" plan look like we tried. (It'll take 8 hours to get a stubborn Greek to leave; they'll think the gov't or Turkey is trying to trick them.)
I don't want to victim-blame, my deepest condolences to all families of those who lost their lives in their tragedy, but maybe hiking on an active volcano isn't a great idea and carries risks. The government should make these risks clearer, so hikers can make informed decisions.
I’ll gladly take our tornadoes over earthquakes anytime. At least we can take some kind of shelter from tornadoes but with earthquakes there is really nowhere to go.
You think? From what I've seen, people who get actually hit by a tornado often have their shelter collapse completely right on top of them. While most volcanic activity is detected long in advance- sometimes months. Instantaneous eruptions like this are extremely rare. However even if you know a tornado is coming right at you and go inside and close all the doors and windows, you may have only minutes and if it's RIGHT at you, your house is screwed anyway. Seems like one of those you can get away from, but not the one you're thinking.
@@mommy2libras I am thinking you are not from a tornado prone area, because storm shelters dont collapse on top of people very often. Its actually quite rare and most likely not professionally built if so. Storm shelters aren't above the ground if they are for tornados either. Unless you mean debris falling on top of the entrance/exit and folks not being able to get out(which is why you should always have at least a case of water per person and some non perishable food items already stored down there as well. Also pet food if applicable) but that is not what I'm inferring from your comment. If that IS what you mean though, rescue would come clear the debris evetually and you can get out. But even getting trapped like that doesn't happen all to often either.
@@mommy2libras true, if it’s coming at you, there isn’t much you can do but maybe try to our run it if your in a car. But just the thought of the earth shaking, maybe splitting open and i have no way to even try to get away just terrifies me.
Are you telling me ah volcano did volcano things 😂😂😂😂 let me guess, vault lines cause earthquakes???😂😂😂😂😂 If you move into tornado Alley guess what??? You will come across a tornado 😂😂😂😂😂
IMO .... earth is to be respected. Even though their technology didn't prompt them to say "Mt. Ontake is not safe today, tremblor readings are too high".... doesn't matter, Mother Earth will erupt when ever she wants.
I think on some level Japan didn't want to set the precedent of paying victim families for volcanic deaths since they know Fuji is 300 years overdue for an eruption when it formerly erupted every 30 years in previous centuries.
It's just that the Nature itself sometimes dropped the unpredictable movement. sure they can be predicted by using our current tech nowdays, but still... *Sigh 😞 Rest In peace for all of the victim 🙏🏻😇
1)You can't outrun the ash cloud, so I would 100% be filming it. Why not? I'd be dying anyway, but maybe someone somewhere could learn something from an upclose video. 2) The scientists weren't wrong. Phreatics are fast, brutal, and inescapable.
In the end, as soon as abnormal seismic activity is observed they issue a "Explanation on the Volcanic Activity" (火山の状況に関する解説資料) and they raise the warning Level on a scale of 1-5 according of different criteria set for each volcano, which recently got new adopted for most active volcanoes. Its hard to understand the significance of volcanic earthquake, since they can be a sign for very different complicated things that could happen below the volcano, such as a volcanic intrusion causing stress to be built up and released in a volcanic earthquake, or stress being released on a tectonic fault that is put under stress because of the constant uplift of the volcano (volcano-tectonic earthquake). It strongly depends on the volcano, on how much volcanic earthquake are considered a reason to raise the volcanic level from 1 to 2 (active volcano to crater entry restriction), and on the magnitude of those earthquakes. (85 volcanic earthquake sound like a lot, but if most of them are of small magnitude the danger is not as high). If they would raise the volcanic level for every volcanic earthquake sequence that is occurring, and does not result in an eruption (which actually happens quite often, like in December 2022 were there was a earthquake sequence ongoing at Bandai volcano without any eruption), people may either start to lose trust in the system, leading to people eventually disregarding warnings. Its kinda like a two edged sword and depends on trained scientist handling the situation. Then again the factor of phreatomagnatic eruptions. As said, those are caused by water intriguing into the volcanic complex, leading to it evaporating and, since steam takes significantly more space than liquid water, slowly putting pressure on the magma chamber. After time, steam builds up enough and releases in a strong phreatomagnatic explosion. They are known to occur on volcanoes, where the magma somehow got in contact with rainwater stored inside the volcano, and are often hard to predict, since it's hard to detect how close the magma could be from an evolving water storage. That being said, I can fully understand why the JMA did not directly raise the alert level, after volcanic earthquakes spiked a few days prior, especially considering it decreased again. JMA had no possibility to rise the Level to 2 on the day of the eruption neither, at least no before the eruption, since 10 minutes after the volcanic earthquakes severely picked up again, the volcano erupted... there was no possible way to save the people on the mountain with the known data JMA had. (Volcanic earthquakes picked up at 11:41JST and it erupted at 11:52JST). On the day before the eruption happened, JMA announced 3 different "Explanation on the Volcanic Activity" reports, stating that volcanic earthquakes are continuing. In my opinion JMA handled the situation like they are supposed to. They informed the public frequently (3 reports a day is 3 reports more than you usually get for Level 1 warned volcanoes), but given the fact that the volcanic earthquakes weren't strong or frequent enough, they did not raise the alert level. My condolences to anyone that died during the eruption, it really was unexpected tragedy, even unexpected for the greatest trained scientists in the country
The thing is that it's always easy to judge what SHOULD have happened in hindsight. Transparency is imperative, especially when it comes to potential disaster. But no one can ever predict what might happen. Nature is unpredictable, even when we have tools that can forecast certain instabilities. People who lose someone will always look to cast blame to direct their anger from loss at a tangible force. It's an emotional and very human reaction. But sometimes there just is not anyone to blame, despite our incessant need to direct our emotion at something or someone. It just goes to show how minute and unimportant we are compared to nature, and how we should respect and fear it.
Pyroclastic flows, or nuee ardentes, whichever language you want to call them, happen suddenly, with or without a lot of warning. Every really deadly eruption has been due to them: Mt. Pinatubo, Mt. St Helens, Mt Pelee, Karakatoa, White Island, and Vesuvius. They don't need a big earthquake to start them. Even if the scientists had mentioned the tremblors, their low level would probably have not stopped anyone.
The pyroclastic flow is so fast it looks sped up… and I disagree with you. Hindsight is always 20/20. Ban everything dangerous and there will be nothing fun left (from experience)
Excellent presentation. In real emergencies and violence your phone belongs in your pocket. It won't save you. No picture or vid is worth committing suicide for...
Its amazing Japan has a Mountain they look at as sacred, Native Americans had a similar Mountain that we worshipped but then White People came in and Carved 4 or so white faces in it...Mount Rushmore🤦♂️
You are ALWAYS taking a chance when hiking an active volcano. You are taking a risk that should be determined by common sense not what someone else tells you.
I think there should have definitely been a warning. Not forbidding hikers but warn of possible eruption danger. Of course nobody wants to accept responsibility. Seems always to be the case in tragedies like this. Meanwhile families suffer. Just once (or more!} I'd like to see the big guys get dinged. Peace to the dead and their family members.
If you proceed into a danger zone, flood hazards in canyons, active volcanoes, shark infested waters, it doesn't matter. You are culpable. End of story. You don't have to go, no one is forcing you. You proceeded voluntarily with full knowledge. You only are accountable for your choices.
In the end, YOU are responsible for your own life. Volcanology is not an exact science and infallible. You want to walk up what is known to be an active volcano? Be my guest, but if something happens outside the parameters we know about volcanoes, it's no ones fault.
The issue was NOT that the government did not notify people of the recent albeit, slight disturbances leading up to the eruption, it was NOT having a written plan in place if and when there was an eruption. Someone working there should have explained the risks and what to do in an emergency before sending people up there. Send people up in groups and have a safety officer explain to each group what to do in case of an event before heading up the volcano. No group can head up until briefed. I like how the government installed safety shelters after the fact. That's such a government thing to do.......
There’s always seismic activity on such mountains. The question is, was that activity suddenly increased? Everyone who went up there knew it was an active volcano, that it had recently erupted . They made a choice to hike up an active volcano and unfortunately paid for that decision with their lives. Mother nature is not kind. One should not blame others for the consequences of one’s own choices.
There are detailed documentary in Japan that shows the gears wore by the survivors. Some used the pots and pans from the camping gear as shielding from the raining debris but the burning rocks just goes thru them like paper.
What if there had been no small eruptions leading up to this tragic day ? And it just erupted , no warnings nothing , this could happen at any active volcano, . Dont get me wrong I feel for everyone that lost their lives but everyone takes a risk to goin to these places .
If we could control volcanoes, we wouldn’t need monitoring agencies. Monitoring seismic activity is a relatively new field of study and is far from being fully comprehensive. To blame someone or some entity for something that was both completely out of their control and impossible to predict with the limited knowledge on hand is flat out the wrong thing to do. No one was to blame for this incident.
