The Truth About the Mount Unzen Video

[@bitey-facepuppyguy2038]

Thank you Zacinator for this video and explanation. I have always assumed that the photo of the dome collapse was not the the big one of June 3. I also figured that the overhead view of a flow entering a ravine was also not the large June 3 event. I did NOT however realize that the camera position showing the retreating fire truck was a different valley. Thank you again.

[@gaius_enceladus]

Excellent video and really good clarification of what happened! Very scary to find out that the killer part of the flow was much bigger than the often-repeated clip shown here!

[@Volcano-Man]

@j4d3goat. That clip is the flow that was bigger than the others. It overwhelmed Maurice and Katya Krafft, Harry Glicken and 38 others - mostly journalists, but some onlookers. Maurice was identified by his watch and I can assure you he was not a pretty sight - no of them were. They had died being roasted alive, their lungs chocked with incandescent ash. I should have gone on the ridge but didn't! The reason I was asked by someone a question or ten, and by the time they were satisfied the group were too far ahead. I did help recover the bodies. But that PDC was triggered by a massive - (much larger than previous collapses), collapse of the lava dome, it over flowed the valley over the ridge. None of the flows before or after overflowed the ridge.

[@carolynallisee2463]

The late professor of Volcanology for the Open University, Peter Francis, covered the 1991 eruption of Unzen in his book 'Volcanoes: A Planetary Perspective'. One of the reasons it proved fatal to the Krafts and Glicken was that, immediately prior to the deadly flow, they thought they were safe where they were. The flows were being generated by frequent collapses of Unzen's growing lava dome. The flows that were being generated were for the most part small, and following an established path, turning at a right angle on reaching the valley floor and then following it down. the people who died were on a small ridge on the other side of the valley, and had no reason to believe they were in any danger. What happened then was something humans had never seen or recorded before. The flow 'de-coupled'; that is, it separated into a denser lower part carrying the heavier debris, and a much lighter and buoyant gas-and-ash cloud. The lower, heavier half continued on down the established route, but the lighter but still searing hot upper part kept going in the direction it had started in, sweeping over the other side of the valley, and over the position on the ridge where everyone thought they'd be safe. Sad to say, this wasn't the first or last time that volcanologists have been caught out and killed by their subjects of study. Volcanoes are constantly throwing up surprises, most of them nasty, and all we can be sure of is that we haven't seen all they can do, or ever will. And we must assume that there is always going to be some level of risk anytime we go near an active one!

[@kimmccarthy7747]

This reminds me of the attitude of the citizens of St Pierre who were killed by Mt Pelee in 1902. There had been mud flows and small pyroclastic flows before the big one, but they had followed the same path, the valley of the river Blanche, which was off to the left of the city, and the people saw nothing to make them think anything would ever change that. They were far more concerned about the little towns that lay just to the left of that valley. Ironically, when the big explosion came, also in May, those villages were spared and the city was destroyed.

[@carolynallisee2463]

@@kimmccarthy7747 The people of St Pierre, and all those who came in on ships, might well have survived if the local politicians had been less bothered about the upcoming elections, and allowed people to leave. They did everything they could to keep people at home, even employing a local scientist to declare that the volcano posed as much threat to St Pierre as Vesuvius did to Naples ( a veiled hint that things could get very bad indeed, if ever there was one!). The sad truth is that for just one survivor's account, no-one had any clue that volcanoes could do this kind of thing, possibly because almost everyone who'd ever seen it died immediately afterward. That one was, of course, Pliny the Younger, whose recounting of the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius was, as we now know, pretty darned accurate, but was probably dismissed by many learned men as fantasy, at least to begin with. The old adage "Seeing is Believing" might be a good one, but it all too often proves fatal, at least where volcanoes are concerned!

[@eddiecharles6457]

Well done. That's decades of my confusion has just been clarified. Thanks

[@wiretamer5710]

This level of analysis restores my faith in humanity. I have no doubt that if you found new evidence, that contradicted the smallest claim made in your cometary, you would correct it without a second thought.

[@donlarocque5157]

Why do people have to embellish? It's already a tragedy, why make it seem worse? Ratings? I guess.

[@jesusisunstoppable4438]

You're a Liar .. you don't have faith in anything

[@ggusty1711]

There was another video, recovered from a camera found at the scene where the crew died. The film quality is low, it cuts out a lot, you can see the mountain and ridge followed by the crew scrambling and cars driving away. There is somewhere, a full length version that includes audio of the moment the flow hits the crew. But the version I saw was edited so that you could only hear them before the flow hits. According to a translation, the last line is “did you hear that?” One of the cameramen who died has a daughter who grew up and is trying to keep his memory alive, I’m not sure if the footage was taken by him or not.

[@James.G.Ireland]

That led me here due to no VO

[@James.G.Ireland]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/m2fbg6CZrL1-asUsi=iYJzElabKIXgwsq9

[@nplakias1]

Where can we find this video you are talking about? Can you provide a link please? Thanx in advance

[@AckReikTheGreatest07]

One funny thing about the narrator in Nature's Inferno, Stacy Keach, he later started narrating for a TV show called World's Most Amazing Videos, which also did a segment on the same eruption, the show claimed nobody was killed in the pyroclastic flow.

[@sdean1978]

Thank you for fighting against fake videos. The internet is filled with click-bait false videos. I appreciate you calling this out and your documentation integrity.

[@arthureaton8]

Congratulations for an excellent piece of work! I think it shows a huge amount of thought and effort has gone into your research. I'm now trying to get my head around the fact, that the overwhelmingly massive pyroclastic flow in the video.... was the small one.

[@mateomaderas5504]

You might like to look into the footage of the 2018 Fuego eruption. Most footage is from a smaller, earlier, flow than the devastating one and I always wondered why it did not look like it reached the village. It is of interest that they did not make wider evacuations after this event. There is one amazing and harrowing video taken by a police crew, I think, that shows first the damage from the first flow as they try to clear people away then it shows the killer flow chase them down the road and past the the village that was so sadly buried. This video was on YT, but I think it may have disappeared as I can’t find it now.

[@southwerk]

Very well done. The explanations are clear and convincing.

[@MeargleSchmeargle]

"Something triggers a pyroclastic flow 10 times larger than all that came before. Within moments, it overwhelmed the valley. By the time a camera in the village records this scene, Maurice, Kattia, and 41 others are dead." Chilling delivery by the narrator.

[@miahcharlesworth9252]

Nice video thanks. I'm an internet geek for volcano's and loved your explanations! Very well put together.

[@PathogeniNk]

We’re well done - it’s clear that you’ve taken time to look at all of the details. Thanks for sharing all of this with us - it’s refreshing to see someone actually do the work required to get past the hype and into the reality.

[@aoilpe]

We tragically lost M.&K.Krafft, like you mentioned , in this event. We hold up their memories in my town of Mulhouse/France where they lived close by,with a roundabout and a street named after them. As seen in the footage the Krafft’s have been somewhere on the mountain slopes….

[@marks1638]

Harry Glicken almost died eleven years earlier as he was supposed to be at Mt Saint Helens on the day of its massive eruption on May 18, 1980. He'd been working at the USGS observation point for six straight days, but he had to go to a meeting with his Professor, Richard Fisher, down at Mammoth Lakes, California to discuss his graduate work. David Johnston, his research advisor and mentor, took his place that day at Coldwater II station just five miles from the Northern Flank. That morning Mt Saint Helens had a huge landslide due to a 5.1 earthquake which in turn produced a massive pyroclastic flow, which killed David Johnstone (and 56 other people). It's considered ironic that Glicken died the same way almost eleven years later as he and David Johnson are the only two American Volcanologists to die on volcanoes (and by the same method). Glicken had already become well known for his detailed work at Mt Saint Helens (he helped map the entire volcano after the 1980 eruption) and his theory (later proven at other volcanoes) that tall volcanoes tend to collapse, called the "Hummock Theory" (based on finding fields of mounds or knolls (less then 15 meters in height) near volcanoes that are the remains of old volcano avalanches from collapses).

[@nplakias1]

Fantastic video, I have watched it many times already. Could you please share with us any links to interesting websites regarding this eruption? I mean those you used when you were preparing this video. Thanx in advance

[@TheOobo]

Brilliantly explained with excellent sources backing you up! While many of the misconceptions surrounding the documentary are simply due to the reasonable lack of a detailed explanation, it makes me really sad that the viral clip was stitched together and redubbed in such misleading ways. There's no need to muddy the waters for the sake of drama, the original footage is plenty dramatic on its own, and I have a fresh perspective on this eruption's destructive power knowing the first three shots are from smaller events.

[@skullsaintdead]

2:39 wasn't that a static shot? I thought it was the camera that had been set up by a Japanese crew earlier but they left it running 24/7 after getting told to pull back by their network, so it was unmanned at the time of those incredible shots being taken (I think this might of been mentioned in Herzog's The Fire Within or a review on KZbin, comparing his film to the less impressive The Fire of Love, as I somehow already knew there were two valleys, this film being the less deadly of the two, not where the Kraffts & taxi drivers, civilians, firefighters etc were).

[@gchukma]

Had we had a translation, you clearing would have heard the guy holler " lets get the F outta here ". My Japanese is a little rusty but that's what it sounded like to me.

[@gchukma]

You don't have to understand Japanese to know that's exactly what he was thinking.

[@williamcote4208]

Yeah, and it’s pretty well known now especially because of a certain JoJo meme about the Joestar family secret technic

[@Stellra52]

My Japanese is basically zero and I still know that's what he's yelling. Borders may divide us, but a shared human experience of "Oh JESUS FUCK RUN" connect us even without words. ❤🌏

[@nasakid35]

1:18 I think the reason the worlds attention was on Pinatubo is because a US Navy (25 miles) and Air Force (10 miles) base were within eruption range. Clark Air Base was basically the volcanologists base of operations.

[@28DAYS77]

That was great to hear the real story about those iconic pictures of that day I must have seen dozens of times in so many news or geology videos

[@robinpeppin]

i just watched a video of this event, i had never heard of it. it showed the same 5 or 6 videos repeatedly. i always wonder which ones are authentically of the disaster i'm watching. some clips looked like they were from the 70's or something. it had japanese subtitles & no narration so i had minimal idea of the details. so i was glad when i saw your video. the one looks like a rock slide, not a volcano, but i know little of these things. thanks for the info.

[@timmyb7734]

I remember watching a documentary about that couple as a kid and how close they would get to volcanoes and thinking how dangerous it was, then after the credits there was announcement that they had just died.

[@kevint1910]

back then volcanology was all about gas and lava sampling and for that you needed to get right down in to the calderas. the most tragic part of this event was that a seismologist had recently figured out what "harmonic tremors" were and this eruption was one of the first that was monitored for harmonics and based on that technology he issued warnings that were ignored because the volcanologists did not believe the result because it contradicted their sampling data...literal death by hubris.

[@fallingjimmy4346]

Thank you for a well researched, well presented explanation that really helps put the famous video into context.

[@knr1]

"...and the cameraman to survive..." nah, as we all know the cameraman never dies. It's their biggest quirk 😅

[@farhanatashiga3721]

seeing you at the start is tripping me out because it shows how people born in the mid 2000s is about to hit adulthood don't know why but i can't helped but be a bit weirded out by that, also misconceptions aside you have to admit it's kinda funny how that fireman was so terrified at the sight of the flow he just ran instead of hopping on the truck lol.

[@committedtolife]

What a great video! 👏 congrats! You have just undone a bunch of misconceptions I had. I like you. Just subscribed tks a lot keep the good work. Peace

[@AtarGG]

Okay. This was great. Love the 3d model of the valley really gives a good idea of what it is that Im looking at. Well done.

[@zfid]

Excellent analysis thank you for posting

[@evilsharkey8954]

When I was young, I don’t remember hearing anything about Mt. Unzen. Meanwhile, I heard about Pinatubo before it even erupted. Pinatubo is held up as an example of eruption prediction and evacuation done right. If people hadn’t been warned, it would have claimed many times more lives.

[@safespacebear]

Good work. Great video! I cant say i ever wonder but im glad someone took the time

[@Car1Sagan]

Good video. This guy is right, back then I do remember the media reporting on Pinotubo, but not much on Unzen.

[@josephastier7421]

7:02 Where can we find these still images of the flow?

[@zacinator9094]

The large one you can find here: docplayer.net/22945543-Volcanoes-3-1-introduction-to-volcanoes-learning-objectives-mt-unzen-1991.html

[@josephastier7421]

@@zacinator9094 Thank you!

[@FloozieOne]

As most people did I watched the videos and was terrified of them. I had no idea they had been manipulated to such a degree. It reminds me of my manta "never believe what you see on the internet". In any case thank you for your clarity about what actually happened.

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

One of those moments you can look back on as a defining event that leads you to research and potential jobs. Thanks for posting

[@edwigcarol4888]

thank you for your investigation and the clarification.. But this smaller pyroclastic flow is such a clear expressive picture.. of course it has been shown everywhere since and it has a high educational value: one can realize the s.p.e.e.d. (complacent attitude with Mount St Helen eruption 1980...) In the main valley on the right there were too much fog to create such a picture... But on the other side people were there running desperately for their lives. Morally it is better to not show picture of that if there were any...

[@evilsharkey8954]

Mount St Helens had a lateral blast eruption, much more violent and faster than a typical pyroclastic flow.

[@orogenicman]

Well done. Thanks for sharing.

[@snigwithasword1284]

Wooow that before / after shot does so much to show the bonkers scale of it!

[@djohnson9083]

Extremely informative. Thanks!

[@stephenrothwell8142]

A very well done video. Very informative. Thanks matey.

[@lionblaze0384]

very interesting and informative video, crazy how unknown this channel is

[@dripworks6659]

This video was excellent.

[@STEPHANIEH70]

Wow, this was amazing. Thank you!

[@therafnquads1980]

My current issue is NIWA said hunga tonga was a VEI 6 event yet the US geological group says it was a VEI 5.7, would love to know the actual number but meh

[@nox4298]

I’m guessing the 5.7 figure would be a VEI 5 as it doesn’t meet the threshold for a VEI 6 to them. Smithsonian rated it as a VEI 5 as well.

[@diGritz1]

There's a really doc on the Krafft's that give a pretty detailed account. the name escapes me right now. Werner Herzog, Into the Inferno and the Volcano Watchers is pretty good too.

[@cineflightstudios]

He posted!!!

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

This video is amazing to me! Thank you!

[@ultrametric9317]

Outstanding report, thanks a lot!

[@PoorMansChemist]

What a fascinating and informative video

[@ellenbryn]

thank you so much for your research. i'm going to have to watch it a few times to untangle what you just said - my sense of direction is not great. Really sad, but I have wondered about this video so often. It was such a shock when the Kraffta died. I was in college, but i'd learned qbout them through NOVA and National Geographic, and I already hero worshiped them. I would've been 20 the year they died. I wish Katia would have just followed her instincts and stayed away, although I know it would have been devastating for her. I've seen so many documentaries now where husbands, even scientists who should know better. have decided not to evacuate or take shelter from major hurricanes, storm surges, tornadoes or wildfires, disregarding mandatory evacuation orders and emergency services' orders, while their wife who wasn't raised to be macho argues it's time to go, but stays because they feel like they have to take care of their partner if something happens. but of course, this wasn't just about the Kraffts. Maurice, at least, had made his peace years earlier with the idea that he'd probably die in an eruption, and poor Harry Glicken had never gotten over David Johnson dying while taking his shift on Mount st Helens ten years earlier - I feel like he tried to do the work of two men for the decade after that, until he, too, was taken. But western volcanologists were visitors. They came and went, some more tragically than others. Unzen was a Japanese volcano and a Japanese tragedy. You rightly draw attention to the majority of deaths, local media and firefighters stationed too close to protect them(I think?) as well as the devastation to the local villages and farms. Japan is experienced with all the side effects of living on active plate boundaries, but that doesn't make the losses from the big eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis any easier to bear. I feel like Mt Unzen may have been their most devastating volcano in my lifetime besides Sakurajima, although that phreatic (steam) explosion from Mt Ontake was tragic.

[@firstnamelastname6216]

Great job man!!!

[@P4hs]

I always wondered all this. Thanks!

[@beans100]

Thank you for your meticulous research.

[@davedavedave52]

I have seen this Unzen clip 20 times at least. But I didnt know where it originated till now. No one ever gave any reference.

[@bt8472]

Unbelievable, I've seen that footage many times, but you summed it up perfectly. Well done. Definitely makes more sense now. Maurice and Katia Kraft were extremely brilliant in what they learnt and then taught to the world about the dangers of such fiery beasts, but with those risks, there's sure to be casualties involved.

[@Velereonics]

I mean if something causes the eruption of one, it's likely that other ones near to it or at least on the same side of the same fault will also erupt. I don't think it's really ironic for surprising and don't they know what exactly causes eruptions or will we not tracking that information in 91? Nowadays they can tell you like what exactly is causing it like a magma incursion or gas shifting around moving magma. There's like lots of different ones

[@garrettfornea1088]

Internet: “Cameraman never dies” The Kraffts:

[@GTRyan35]

Awesome research!

[@juliendestandau]

Great work 👍

[@opalishmoth8591]

Easily the most informative source on this incident It’s a real shame no one has bothered to make a proper documentary (in English). At least as far as u could find. The least we can do is keep the victims story alive so the mistakes of that day are not repeated. But in many ways their story will forever be shrouded in mist. To an extent, we will never know what happened in the valley that day.

[@ibelieveingaming3562]

The bottom comment at 9:59 is haunting...

[@glencanyon7845]

Well done!

[@MackerelCat]

Thanks. Super interesting.

[@appleoxide4489]

with the name 'Akamatsudani Valley', i'm pretty sure the -dani part means valley 谷. so 'akamatsu valley valley'

[@LolUGotBusted]

80% of the world's volcanoes are on the ring of fire. Nothing ironic about it

[@minraja]

Wow they were very lucky that pyroclastic flow changed course like it did. I don't think they do that all that often.

[@nowistime8070]

thank you. I just learned from you

[@TheRealRedAce]

Most volcano eruption videos on KZbin show film of eruptions from totally different kinds of volcanos thousands of miles from the one they are discussing. :(

[@itwasaliens]

Imagine getting swallowed up by that. Horrifying.

[@jeremyfondo4320]

That is mrs. Kraft. Her and her husband died about 3 min. after you see her funning. They had to go around the mtn. to get out. thats where they died.

[@deecilla5087]

Just goes to show how frightening and how quick these pyroclastic flows can get. The sheer magnitude of this footage is scary enough but to think it's more the tail-end of the more horrific one that claimed lives. I can only imagine the devastation after. Seeing the Mt. Pinatubo aftermath in person back in the 90s and to still reel at the expanse of how far-reaching the disaster is, I can only sympathize and feel sad at how barren the area surrounding Mount Unzen is now.

[@MyerShift7]

Didn't the Krafts pass during the 1991 Unzen flow? Oh,.... Yeah they state so.

[@DrewD76]

It was “Something in the Ground”.

[@kevinwebster7868]

This guy doesn’t understand how documentaries are made. Of course they will use footage that isn’t necessarily from that days events just to give the viewer an understanding of what took place. I bet this guy would be shocked to find out all the footage from the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa wasn’t actually filmed like the documentaries make it seem.

[@jamesburke6078]

Rodan! Run for your lives

[@burgersbeansandchips]

This is how you do pedanticism

[@Bigtimecharlie1349]

Yes this happened when I was a kid but skipped it to watch pornhub 😂

[@anthonyjh02]

You don’t have to share everything to everyone you know that yes

[@ixxieangel]

16 years before Pornhub's creation my that is impressive.

[@Bigtimecharlie1349]

Sat one that German channel on sky in the 80s & 90s. Great euro porn 🤣💯

[@christosvoskresye]

"Mount Unzen" has always sounded like "Mount Unsinn" to me, "Unsinn" being German for "nonsense".

[@eveningstarnm3107]

I don't know what the lie was, and I've learned that when someone on KZbin says they're telling the truth, they aren't. I've blocked your channel from my feed. I'll never see your videos again.

[@BeUpAbohvit]

A Beautiful Disaster

[@woodchipgardens9084]

Wrong, Pina Tubo killed,

[@SynchronisedMinds]

Created by CNN?

[@Desert-edDave]

Uses video footage in video, states, "For some reason filmmakers insist on using in their documentary". 🙄 Replies off. Obsessive kid turns older kid makes fanboyish commentary about volcano eruption that happened before he was born - making inane rants about unspecified use of video footage that does not matter. Truly a waste of bandwidth for anyone but like-minded narcissists.

[@suckersupreme4380]

Damn, I really thought this was a channel with a massive amount of subscribers. This is some amazingly professional shit!

[@ganndeber1621]

Nice one