WILLIAM SHATNER: For centuries, humanity has repeatedly faced
devastating disasters that have unleashed
destruction,
defied explanation,
and changed the course of history.
In our modern world, we tend to think
that scientific knowledge and technology
can help protect us from almost anything,
including natural disasters.
But is that really true?
Or are we just as vulnerable today
in the face of raging fires,
violent earthquakes
and destructive hurricanes
as our ancestors were in the past?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
The city is in the midst of an
unprecedented period of growth and prosperity.
That is, until a small fire breaks out
in a barn located at 137 DeKoven Street.
The blaze quickly grows out of control,
and flames spread north and east
toward the heart of the city,
putting Chicago's 324,000 residents
in grave danger.
NIGEL RAAB: 1871 Chicago had experienced
enormous growth, and that enormous growth
meant very fast building,
and also very fast building in wood.
Buildings were made out of wood,
and sidewalks were made out of wood,
and the important thing
about sidewalks being made out of wood
is those conduct heat very easily
from one part of the city to the other,
and so, that spread the fire throughout the city.
This was exacerbated by a period
of an extremely dry summer and fall,
which prepped most of the city's construction,
which was wood at the time,
as kindling.
The whole thing was basically waiting to go up in smoke.
Buildings were clustered together.
So, once one area went up,
the whole thing went up,
and to make matters worse,
the water tower in Chicago,
which was the firefighters' principal source for water
to fight the fire, was itself destroyed.
SHATNER: Since the authorities were unable to contain the blaze,
nine different fires broke out across the city,
eventually coalescing into a single
raging inferno.
McGEE: The Chicago Fire was
biblically devastating, if you want to think of it like that.
Try to visualize
what the people in the mid-19th century were seeing.
An entire city engulfed in flames, which was so hot
it created the fire equivalent of dust devils.
Vortices, think of them like reverse tornadoes
that were sweeping across the city.
They call them fire devils, and they themselves,
they have fast enough winds that they could fling
burning bits of debris
into other parts of the city
that hadn't yet caught on fire.
So, literally, this was
the world coming to an end. Death by fire.
SHATNER: For three days, the fire raged across Chicago,
turning the wooden city into ash.
One-third of the city's buildings
were burned to the ground, and 300 people were killed
before a rainstorm mercifully put an end
to the disaster.
There were 17,000 buildings destroyed in that fire,
and more than 100,000 people lost their homes.
The fire basically destroyed
most of the inner city of Chicago.
McGEE: Anyone who experiences
an incomprehensible disaster
on the scale of the Chicago Fire
is gonna be profoundly impacted by it, and history shows us
the Chicagoans were.
There was intense citywide grief.
There was so much pride in the city of Chicago,
in what they'd become in such a short period of time,
that there was despair.
Everything was gone.
SHATNER: It's hard to fathom 17,000 buildings
in such a bustling, prosperous city
burning to the ground in only a few short days.
And in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire,
people wanted to know how the massive inferno got started.
But, at the time,
investigations into fires were in their infancy,
so authorities had a hard time
collecting evidence.
RAAB: What caused the fire?
It was the question that was in everyone's mind.
You know, when people were trying to figure out
the origin of the fire,
there was the popular story that
it was a cow inside the barn that kicked over a lantern,
and from there, events unfolded.
Now that's considered an urban legend.
There are many different contested ways
in which that could have started, but it did
start on the property and spread from there.
SHATNER: The destruction unleashed by the Great Chicago Fire
took nearly two years to repair.
And during the rebuilding process,
engineers were told to ensure
that such a disaster could never happen again.
In the aftermath of the Chicago Fire,
fire was principle on everyone's mind,
and so, almost immediately,
they enacted a brand-new series of ordinances
requiring things like limestone,
granite in building construction.
Steel beams instead of pine beams, which are flammable.
And a new technological innovation,
which was terra-cotta tiles,
which started to fireproof Chicago
in a way that the world basically had never seen before.
STEPHEN PYNE: After the fire in Chicago, we got
the origins-- at least for the U.S.-- of modern architecture.
So, they began using iron
and glass, giving us the basis for modern buildings.
And these would be, in a sense, much less combustible.
SHATNER: While the Great Chicago Fire
inspired innovations in fire prevention,
it also served as a reminder that,
even though mankind first mastered fire
some 400,000 years ago,
it remains a powerful and unpredictable
force of nature that can inflict great harm.
TOK THOMPSON: Fire is a frequent disaster that comes upon people,
but it's an interesting one.
As far as we know, no other species on the Earth, uh,
makes fire, uh, to utilize it.
It's one of the things somewhat unique to our species.
It's both necessary and yet incredibly
destructive and dangerous.
This has been a part of the human story
for a long, long time.
Fire is a double-edged sword.
On one edge of the sword, we're talking about
creating foods and creating warmth and light
that makes modern civilization possible.
But the other side of the sword
is if it gets out of control it could wipe out your cities.
SHATNER: In modern times, there have been
tremendous advances in firefighting.
But mankind's ability to stop fires quickly
has led to an unintended consequence
that experts refer to as
the fire paradox.
We have generated a fire paradox.
By this, I mean
we have dramatically affected fire
in the landscape around the world.
On the one hand, we've been fighting fires,
trying to stop wildfires from consuming the vegetation.
Now, this may sound good, but, at the same time,
it's actually a problem.
If you reduce natural fire from the landscape,
if you keep it out of landscape for too long,
you will have an accumulation of flammable material,
and when a fire eventually occurs,
it'll be more destructive.
Wildfires are becoming longer and more intense.
The data proves this.
For example, one of the largest megafires
in California so far was called
the August Complex fire, which happened in 2020.
It was so large that it burned over a million acres,
which is just unheard of in history.
Ever since we had the Great Chicago Fire in 1871,
we had been under the impression that we shouldn't
ever try to allow fire to happen on the landscape.
We now know that we should
actually allow some fire to happen naturally.
And all we can do is do our best to understand it
because these fires are gonna keep happening.
It's staggering to think that, in just three short days,
the Great Chicago Fire wreaked so much havoc,
it took nearly two years to repair the damage.
But there have been other disasters in history
that have inflicted even greater destruction on civilization.
Like in the year 1755,
when a massive earthquake nearly wiped out
an entire city.
SHATNER: Across the city, a celebration is underway.
Thousands of Christians are packed into churches
to celebrate a festival known as All Saints' Day.
But then, at about 10:00 a.m.,
without warning,
disaster strikes.
WYSESSION: A massive magnitude 8 earthquake occurred in
the Atlantic Ocean seafloor right along
the tectonic plate boundary between Eurasia and Africa.
The shaking from this earthquake
knocked down about 85% of the buildings of Lisbon.
Even worse, this earthquake occurred
while most people were in mass,
in church or cathedrals
on All Saints' Day.
Lisbonites are in all these churches,
and many of the most major churches
in Lisbon were destroyed.
It was one of the most devastating earthquakes
that Europe had seen in centuries.
SHATNER: In a matter of minutes, the massive earthquake
reduced the buildings throughout Lisbon to rubble
and opened a 16-foot-wide crack
in the ground through the center of the city.
Estimates place the death toll as high as 50,000 people,
or about 20% of Lisbon's population.
WYSESSION: In the early 1700s,
if you had listed the five great cities of Europe:
London,
Paris,
Rome, you well might have
included Lisbon in that list.
But, after 1755,
Lisbon's glory was reduced,
literally, to ashes.
Lisbon rebuilt,
but never really reached the same glory that it had.
SHATNER: In the aftermath of the horrific quake,
the residents of Lisbon struggled to understand
why this tragedy had befallen their city.
Many among the Christian populace,
who had only heard of such devastation in the Holy Bible,
believed the earthquake to be an act of God.
Lisbon was dominated by the Catholic Church.
A very, very religious city.
So, lots of theologians started to ponder
the meaning of this event in religious terms
because the fact was, this earthquake had struck Lisbon
on one of its holiest days,
the feast of all saints.
It had killed tens of thousands of Christians
while they were worshipping.
Why did God choose this day
to bring an earthquake upon the people of Lisbon?
And this was a confrontation for many theologians,
and they blamed the people of Lisbon.
They said, "You must have been sinful."
The only reason this could have happened to you
is that you are not living by God's laws.
SHATNER: While some people thought the earthquake
was a punishment from God,
others focused on taking practical steps
to guard against such a calamity in the future.
One of those people was Portugal's prime minister,
the Marquis of Pombal.
McNAB: In the reconstruction of Lisbon,
the Marquis de Pombal oversaw
really critical innovations.
The first is to build earthquake-resistant buildings.
These are built around wooden frames that can actually
sway with an earthquake, rather than collapse.
And then, he improves the city.
Before, it was these winding, medieval streets,
which people could get blocked up in.
So, the Marquis de Pombal, he redesigns the city
on a gridiron system, so, all of a sudden, you have now,
really wide, straight streets,
which are ideal for evacuating people.
And, in fact, the way that he handled
the reconstruction of the city
is the first instance of modern disaster response in history,
where someone actually tries to take a rational response
to the effects of a natural disaster.
SHATNER: The varied reactions to the Lisbon earthquake
have actually been quite common throughout human history.
For thousands of years, mankind has tried to make sense
of these violent tremors that often strike without warning.
Earthquakes have a really unique place, uh,
in human consciousness because you can't see it coming.
It's not like a giant storm
that you can see the clouds approaching,
see the lightning, hear the thunder.
Earthquakes, you feel and you hear,
but that happens in the moment.
You can't run out of the way.
There's nowhere to hide.
The problem of earthquakes and how to deal with them
goes back to antiquity.
The first seismometer to measure earthquakes
was actually invented by a scientist named Chang Heng
back in China in the first century of the common era.
This was a beautiful bronze,
almost a cask,
that had dragons around the perimeter
with balls in their mouths.
And beneath them were a little array of-of bronze frogs.
And the way the device worked is the pendulum
inside would rock just so,
bumping a lever in the direction where the earthquake occurred,
and a ball would fall out of the dragon's mouth and land
telling you the orientation of an earthquake.
And all developments since then on earthquake detectors--
we call them seismometers--
have been variations on that theme.
SHATNER: Today, experts
understand that earthquakes happen when
massive underground rocks, known
as tectonic plates, suddenly collide,
causing seismic forces to be unleashed
beneath our feet.
Scientists can measure an earthquake's power
and even pinpoint its location.
But, in spite of everything we've learned,
we still have a hard time predicting where
and when
the next earthquake will strike.
PHOENIX: With earthquakes,
there's still a component of uncertainty.
And we are always trying to improve
our earthquake knowledge.
We actually have
extensive seismic networks
that go all around the globe,
where you can have an earthquake in China that we sense
in Virginia on a college campus.
And that helps us really triangulate
where these events occur,
how deep in the crust they occur,
and how big they really are.
We've made huge amounts of progress,
but there is still so much more we have to learn
that will help us understand where and when
these quakes might happen, so that we can save lives.
SHATNER: While scientists haven't learned how to predict earthquakes,
a curious theory about what causes some of them
to occur has emerged.
And it just so happens that humanity
may, in fact, be to blame.
McGEE: The idea of human-induced earthquakes
really comes to the forefront of the social mind
in construction of the Hoover Dam
in Nevada in the 1930s.
It actually triggered a series of earthquakes around
the dam under construction.
We think we can create gigantic reservoirs
without facing consequences of these things.
But if your reservoir is near a fault line, watch out.
There is a theory that a lot of seismologists believe in
that the earthquake of 2008 in China
that killed about 70,000 people
was, in fact, created
by this gigantic reservoir
that put enormous pressure
on a fault line,
which then gave way.
What happened in Sichuan in 2008
is a wake-up call.
A wake-up call in that
when you tamper with the Earth
you're tampering with an earthquake.
Is it possible that some of the deadliest earthquakes
in modern times were actually caused by human activity?
It's an unsettling theory,
not only because of the massive damage they inflict,
but also because of the devastating forces
that are sometimes triggered, like
the destructive phenomenon that scientists refer to
as a megatsunami.
SHATNER: Deep within the ocean floor,
a massive earthquake suddenly shakes the ground
for nearly ten minutes.
The energy released measures an astounding 9.1
on the Richter scale, which is the equivalent
of 23,000 atomic bombs
exploding all at once,
making this disaster
the most powerful earthquake of the 21st century.
What happened was there are two major plates
on the Earth that are smashing into each other.
And when this happened, it raised the seafloor there
more than 100 feet
across 900 miles.
And what does this mean?
This means a tsunami's coming.
Tsunamis happen when something causes
the level of the seafloor to go up.
And when the seafloor goes up,
it pushes the whole water column up,
and gravity causes that water to flow away.
This earthquake in 2004
created a massive tsunami
that spread all throughout the Indian Ocean.
SHATNER: The enormous tsunami traveled across the Indian Ocean
at a speed of more than 500 miles per hour
and smashed into the western part
of the island of Sumatra.
McGEE: 20 minutes or so after the quake,
the nearest coastline in Sumatra
suffered a hundred-foot wall of water that came in.
All but the tallest buildings were completely submerged.
So, immediate destruction.
Two hours later, that same wave,
traveling at more than 500 miles per hour
hits Thailand.
(people screaming)
MAN: Get in! Get in! Get in!
SHATNER: Ten-year-old Riley Sewell was on vacation
in Thailand with her family
when the giant tsunami struck.
SEWELL: We are playing on the beach,
and we look towards the shore,
and we see this thin white line is coming at us,
and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger,
and this was a 75-foot tsunami.
My mom is shouting, "Run! Run!" at the top of her lungs,
and we start running up this pathway
up one of the cliffs.
You can just hear, like, this tsunami is loud
and it's smashing.
And it's, like, destroying trees,
but you can also hear the sound of people dying.
Sounds that no person should ever hear,
and no person should ever experience.
Had we not found that pathway,
had we not run as fast as we had,
I wouldn't be talking and breathing
and speaking as I am right now.
SHATNER: While Riley Sewell and her family
were lucky to survive,
230,000 people in 14 different countries perished,
in what was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history.
WEYSESSION: The tsunami killed people in Africa, in India,
and 70,000 people died on Sri Lanka.
So, people all across the world
died from the huge tsunami that hit.
SHATNER: Frightening images broadcast around the world
gave billions of people a first-hand look
of the apocalyptic power of tsunamis.
And yet this disaster
was only the latest in a long history
of doomsday tsunamis
that have been recorded for centuries.
The earliest recorded tsunami happened
in the year 1630,
before the common era.
When a massive tsunami spread
throughout the eastern Mediterranean at that time
and hit the island of Santorini, in the Greek Isles.
Now, interestingly,
1,200 years later,
the Greek philosopher Plato
wrote of the story of Atlantis,
which was a legend that had been handed down for years orally.
The story involved the destruction of an island
in a dramatic day and night,
sinking beneath the waves.
And many anthropologists think that this legend
actually could be referring back to the tsunami
that hit Santorini.
SHATNER: A massive tsunami may have been the inspiration
for Plato's story of the destruction of Atlantis,
but on the other side of the globe,
the dangers of tsunamis
were recorded in stone on the island of Japan.
Japan is based on three major fault lines
that collide,
making it one of the most geologically active areas
for tsunamis.
In fact, tsunami is a Japanese word.
Because tsunamis are a regular occurrence,
they put up stone monuments saying in this year
on this day, the water went up to this level.
SHATNER: Coastal areas such as Japan are still quite
vulnerable to the destructive power of tsunamis.
But, fortunately,
scientists have created an early warning system
which can alert people before the next deadly tsunami strikes.
This technology provides people with a valuable resource
that our ancestors did not have:
the possibility to get out of harm's way.
There's a network of buoys called DART buoys,
and these are pressure sensors
that sit on the ocean seafloor
and can actually detect the pressure
of the tsunami wave as it goes over.
So, if a candidate earthquake
is identified
and then verified,
it goes into a warning system
that broadcasts a warning
throughout the ocean basin,
setting off sirens along coasts,
and alerting people by cell phone.
However, there's still many parts of the world
that don't have adequate coverage,
and we need a lot more sensors
to make sure that we do a better job predicting
and forecasting the arrival of a tsunami.
It's encouraging to know that there's an early warning
system that can help us detect when a tsunami
will strike before it happens.
But some natural disasters are so powerful
and so inexplicable
that it's almost impossible to prepare for them.
Like in the case of a massive cataclysm
that took place almost 1,500 years ago
that covered half the planet
in total darkness.
SHATNER: Spring has arrived in the capital
of the Byzantine Empire.
But even though winter has ended,
the temperature remains cold because
the sky is so dark
that it blocks out the sun.
PHOENIX: What is really astounding
is the way that people described
this 536 event.
You had writers explaining what happened
in very precise detail
from what they could observe.
They described the sun became darkened,
and we felt a thickening in the air,
and we saw this fog or this dust veil.
Now, they didn't know what caused it,
but the descriptions are extremely thorough.
McCORMICK: The Byzantine historian Procopius
wrote that the sun shone at half its strength,
like it was in eclipse.
This was the start of a period
of colder than average temperatures.
And the darkness lasted for 18 months.
SHATNER: The sun was blocked by a dark sky
for over a year?
Such an improbable catastrophe
may sound like it was a fictional story
taken from the pages of ancient folklore or mythology.
But, curiously,
numerous historical accounts of this event were written
not just in Constantinople
but all over the world, during the year
536 A.D.
McCORMICK: What happened in 536 was a
climate event of considerable magnitude that was
terrible for the people who lived through it.
The most detailed record
is in Latin, and it was written by Cassiodorus,
who was a high civil servant in Italy.
He wrote that the sun gave off no warmth
at any time in the course of the day.
And there are also records in Chinese
that refer to a terrible cold,
terrible freezing in the summertime, and so,
we've been able to piece this story
of this extraordinary catastrophe together,
combining the evidence of sources of eyewitnesses
who wrote their reports in Greek,
in Latin, and in, uh, Chinese.
The Earth became cold.
The crops died.
The result was tremendous food shortages,
hunger,
famine in places,
migration and upheaval.
SHATNER: It is clear from the historical record that,
starting in the spring of 536 A.D.,
the entire Northern Hemisphere
experienced darkness
and bitter cold for over a year.
In fact, historians have dubbed 536 A.D.
the worst year to be alive in history.
But what could have caused the sun to become blocked
in the first place and for such a long period of time?
Numerous theories have been proposed, including the idea
that an asteroid impact sent dirt into the atmosphere.
But, in recent years,
some scientists have suggested the darkness
may have been caused by a volcanic eruption.
KAKU: When you think of a volcano, you have an image of lava flows
oozing out of the volcano.
Well, yes, that's what happens,
but that's not the only thing which happens.
You also have all the soot and debris,
which blanket the atmosphere
and block out sunlight.
And so, in 536, we think
that there was a volcanic eruption
and there was so much soot, ash, debris
launched into the atmosphere that it created a fog.
A fog that destroyed agriculture.
A fog that ground civilization to a halt.
PHOENIX: This event around 536
has all the markings
of a very large-scale eruption
that had the ability to change climate conditions
all across the Northern Hemisphere.
It really does emphasize just how big the effects
of volcanoes are, how widespread,
and how damaging they can be to human civilization.
SHATNER: But if a volcano caused the year of darkness,
then which of the nearly 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth
was the one that erupted?
McCORMICK: A team working on the ice levels for 536
from the Swiss-Italian border, found microscopic
morsels of volcanic particles
that matches what one would expect
in a volcano in Iceland.
And so, the top suspect right now
in the eruption behind the 536 event
is one of the many volcanoes in Iceland.
SHATNER: Scientists are still working to definitively prove
whether a volcanic eruption in Iceland
blocked the sun in 536 A.D.
But perhaps the even more pressing question is
could the Earth ever be blanketed in darkness again?
Could this happen again?
The answer is of course it could happen again.
It has happened once in the last 2,000 years,
it has perhaps happened more frequently over a longer
time span that we have not yet been able to uncover.
We need to be prepared.
The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull,
the Icelandic volcano,
actually disrupted a lot of people's lives
because volcanic particles
were going up into the atmosphere.
And it shut down air travel
because those particles
will clog your jet engine and cause major, major problems.
This planet has a beating heart. It has life.
It is an ever-evolving, ever-changing process
every time a volcano erupts.
And we are just along for the ride.
Given the fact that much of Europe and the Middle East
and Asia were shrouded in darkness for an entire year,
it's easy to see why historians think that 536 A.D.
was the worst year to be alive in human history.
But...
the disasters that we face today are no less dangerous.
For instance, the number of hurricanes
that strike our coasts have actually been increasing
in recent years.
And what's even more concerning
is that they may also be getting
bigger and more powerful.
SHATNER: Galveston, Texas. 1900.
At the turn of the century, this bustling city,
located along the Gulf of Mexico,
was one of America's busiest ports.
But that all changed on September 8th, 1900,
when a massive hurricane hit Galveston
and leveled everything in its path.
WYSESSION: The great Galveston hurricane
of September of 1900
was the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history,
killing somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people.
What did most of the destruction
was the huge increase
in the storm surge of about 12 feet.
The whole sea level outside of Galveston,
which is already right at sea level,
was suddenly 12 feet higher,
totally inundating the entire coastal area.
This incredible storm surge
raced across the island
and killed about one in six
of all the people who lived on the island at the time.
At the same time, these incredible winds
demolished the properties themselves
just by the force of the wind power.
SHATNER: 3,600 buildings were destroyed
by the Galveston hurricane,
and 10,000 people
were left homeless.
This storm was so enormous and caused such
devastation that the majority of the population had to flee.
And it really affected the town of Galveston.
It became sort of known
as a dangerous place to live.
SHATNER: While the destruction a hurricane can reap
is impossible to control,
over the past century,
it's been advances in space technology
that have helped to create long-range forecasting
and to lower the human toll these massive storms can take.
WYSESSION: The proliferation of networks of satellites in space have totally
changed how we view the hazard of hurricanes.
We're able to track hurricanes
from when they initially begin,
and we can even predict the exact time
and location of landfall.
SHATNER: But in spite of our technological advances,
we're still very much at the mercy
of the powerful forces of nature,
as some of the worst hurricanes
in history have taken place in the last two decades.
WYSESSION: For Hurricane Katrina, in the year 2005,
about $125 billion worth
of damage occurred, and it's quite likely
that future hurricanes will do the same.
Buildings are going to be destroyed.
Coastlines will be eroded.
The damage from these hurricanes
is enormous and will continue to be.
HEYCK-WILLIAMS: Hurricane Harvey
in Houston in 2017 created such massive flooding
it was what they call a millennial flood.
A flood that big is only supposed to happen
once every thousand years or so.
But Hurricane Harvey is becoming
more of a trend that we're seeing
in terms of the magnitude of these
megastorms, unfortunately, in the U.S.
SHATNER: Is there anything more we can do to protect coastal
communities against destructive hurricanes?
Well, many experts feel that the best way for us to study
and understand hurricanes,
in order to help prevent further loss of life,
is by flying directly into the eye of these
powerful storms.
Going out to fly Irma today.
SHATNER: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
has formed a team of scientists known as
the Hurricane Hunters
who pilot aircraft fitted
with sophisticated sensors
into hurricanes.
We like to say that in a hurricane, we're sort of
the first line of defense
because the first thing you need to know
is the state of the storm.
How strong is it? Where is it going?
What kind of hazards does it pose?
We know how important the measurements are.
And the measurements we need from a hurricane
we can only get by actually putting the aircraft
within the storm.
SHATNER: While gathering this critical data,
Hurricane Hunter pilots witness nature's fury
in a way that few people ever have.
ZAWISLAK: Sometimes I do stop myself
just for a second, just to sort of take it in
and appreciate the scale of it and just
how powerful these storms are.
It's chaos and it's loud,
and it's always remarkable how loud.
Then, all of a sudden, you get through that eye wall,
and then, bang,
it just gets calm, and it's quiet,
typically, in that eye of the storm.
Sometimes they can just be absolutely breathtaking,
to see this clear eye of the hurricane.
Our ultimate goal is when we see people respond
to the information that led to
the right decisions being made
on the ground to evacuate
and to get out of harm's way.
And that's what motivates us
to go fly in these chaotic, turbulent hurricanes.
For people who live in coastal communities,
enduring the destructive power of hurricanes
is simply an unfortunate fact of life.
And that's especially true in regions of the planet
that are rocked by cataclysms so often,
it seems like they can strike at any moment.
These areas are referred to
as disaster hot spots.
SHATNER: In the Pacific Ocean there is a narrow region
that runs from Australia
up the coast of Asia
over to North America
and down the coast of South America.
This horseshoe-shaped area is known for having
some of the worst natural disasters in the world.
So much so that scientists refer to it as
the Ring of Fire.
The Ring of Fire is an active plate boundary
where two plates of the Earth's crust meet,
and that's where you have incredible, uh, earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions.
These places become what I would call hot spots
for future catastrophe.
There's a lot of activity
happening there, and it's on a scale
that shrugs off humans like
we were bacteria on the surface of someone's skin.
PHOENIX: The Ring of Fire
is the most famous geologically active area
in the world.
And people live in these areas where we have so many disasters.
These are very real ongoing hazards,
just by virtue of where these cities are located,
so it really tests people's resilience.
SHATNER: The Ring of Fire is the site
of 75% of the world's volcanoes
and 90% of its earthquakes,
so it's no wonder that experts refer to it
as a natural disaster hot spot.
But that's not the only place
where humans are overpowered
by the force of our living planet.
Some of the largest hot spots for natural disasters
are in the western side of the Atlantic Ocean.
This is the Dominican Republic,
Antigua and Barbuda.
These also are all volcanic islands,
they all are at plate boundaries subject to earthquakes
and they are all in the paths
of many large
tropical hurricanes that cause
massive flooding.
There's almost nothing we can do to prevent that.
However, what we can do
is evacuate regions and prevent the loss of life.
PHOENIX: We see thousands
and thousands of people evacuated
from all over the globe.
That's the best we've got.
We're never going to stop people from living in hot spots.
We are never going to keep people completely safe.
And it's because these disasters
are just part of the true power of nature.
KAKU: When we think of potential catastrophes,
what should be our attitude?
Our attitude should be humble.
You know, we think we're the ones
that control the destiny of the planet,
but you realize that, sometimes, the planet
goes in a direction that we don't necessarily want.
We have to be humble because we don't know when the next
big ones are gonna take place.
If history has taught us anything,
it's that humanity is often powerless
when faced with the wrath of Mother Nature.
And what's concerning is that we don't know
exactly when or where the next fire
or earthquake or tsunami will strike.
No matter how much time and effort we spend trying to study,
predict, and guard ourselves against natural disasters,
the full extent of planet Earth's power
will remain unexplained.
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