En 1998, un tsunami gigantesque a frappé la côte de la Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, anéantissant des villages entiers en un instant. Mais la véritable terreur est survenue après le retrait des vagues, car quelque chose ne collait pas. Les scientifiques s'attendaient à un séisme de bien plus grande magnitude pour déclencher un tsunami aussi dévastateur, pourtant le séisme enregistré était trop faible. C'est alors qu'ils ont découvert la vérité horrifiante : un glissement de terrain sous-marin avait secrètement amplifié le désastre, créant des vagues bien plus meurtrières que prévu. Cet événement a changé la façon dont les experts étudient les tsunamis, prouvant que parfois, le plus grand danger est celui que l'on ne voit jamais venir. Regardez maintenant pour découvrir l'histoire complète de ce cauchemar caché sous la mer ! 🔎🌊 Animation créée par Sympa.
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Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com
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Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres):
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https://www.eastnews.ru
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FunTranscript
00:00July 17, 1998. The evening had begun peacefully, like so many others, in the villages scattered along the north coast of Papua New Guinea.
00:10Then, at 5.49 p.m., the ground crumbled with sudden violence. Without warning, a magnitude 7 earthquake shook the region.
00:19The shock waves spread in the surroundings, the walls were shaking, the dwellings were shaking, and the earth contracted and twisted under the feet of the villagers.
00:27The shock lasted for 19 seconds, with a house located 30 km deep and showing the characteristics of an ordinary earthquake.
00:35Although it caused damage, nothing foretold an imminent disaster.
00:40Deceived by this apparent calm, the inhabitants believed at the end of the event. They did not know that the worst was yet to come.
00:48Then, strange lights attracted the attention of some inhabitants. Everything began with a reddish glow on the horizon, a drift evoking a flame.
00:57This fleeting appearance occurred shortly after the first earthquake, and spread in the northern sky above the ocean.
01:04It shone with an intense flash before suddenly vanishing. What could be the origin?
01:10The hypotheses were whether it was a disturbing omen or simply a singular luminous effect.
01:16But as soon as the light had dissipated, a deafening rumble, coming from afar, resounded with force.
01:23No one understood its meaning, and, driven by curiosity, some went to the beach to scrutinize the horizon.
01:30What they saw was bloody ice. The ocean seemed abnormal, far from peaceful.
01:36The water was agitated, foaming, and seemed to boil in a disturbing, almost unreal way.
01:42It was then that they saw it, a titanic wave rising in the distance, rushing at them at a terrible speed.
01:49The panic seized the population like a powder keg.
01:53Some climbed the trees, others rushed their boats into the lagoon, hoping to escape the imminent horror.
02:00But it was already too late.
02:02The first wave fell with incredible power, destroying entire villages in an instant.
02:08The debris was thrown in all directions, trees were torn down, and some buildings were dragged up to 60 meters inland.
02:17Decades later, these villages remain inaccessible to some by road.
02:22At the same time, a strange phenomenon occurred.
02:26Many witnesses claimed to have seen a reddish glow at the top of the tsunami, giving the impression that the wave was carrying flames.
02:35As it approached the shore, this disturbing light took on a deep, unreal hue, perceptible from locations as far away as Haïtap.
02:44And it was only the prelude to horror.
02:47Two other waves rose shortly after, in rapid succession.
02:51The second was the most devastating, reaching 10 to 15 meters in height.
02:56When the ocean finally withdrew, it left behind only an unrecognizable landscape.
03:02Once the waves had ravaged everything and left the villages in ruins, the sky offered a final show.
03:09The survivors described a yellow or even reddish glow, which illuminated the celestial vault above the ocean.
03:17A survivor, hiding at the top of a tree, observed this persistent brightness stretching in the direction of Arop and Détap.
03:24In Malol, the sisters of Notre-Dame des Missions, turned to the sea, were seized by the strangeness of the spectacle.
03:31The water, of a liquid gold, was of an absolute calm, smooth as oil, bathed by this supernatural glow.
03:38The glow was so vivid that it flooded the ruined landscape with light.
03:42Luckily, this allowed the survivors to immediately begin the search for their missing loved ones.
03:47Many were those who attributed these lights to a supernatural phenomenon, seeing an omen there.
03:53This catastrophe struck with an unpredictable brutality, as sudden as devastating.
03:59The Royal Australian Air Force intervened without delay, dispatching aircraft loaded with emergency equipment.
04:05A question then became crucial. What could have caused such a cataclysm?
04:10Very quickly, investigations revealed that this tsunami was different from the others.
04:15Contrary to ordinary waves, those of a tsunami do not always manifest themselves by walls of water falling on the shore.
04:22Sometimes, the first sign before the runner is a sudden retreat from the sea.
04:26If you see the water abnormally moving away from the coast, stay alert. It's a warning.
04:32When the ocean returns, it does so at lightning speed, like a gigantic tidal wave with destructive power.
04:40In addition, a tsunami rarely occurs in a single wave.
04:44It often strikes by successive waves, destroying everything in its path.
04:48These phenomena occur when an immense mass of water, in an ocean or a large lake, is brutally displaced.
04:56Their main origin lies in earthquakes, which occur when tectonic plates of the Earth suddenly move under the ocean.
05:05By rising or collapsing, the seabed propels the water to the surface, generating waves of colossal magnitude.
05:13However, the tsunami that struck Papua New Guinea deviated from this classic pattern.
05:19At first, researchers thought it resulted from the sliding of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates against each other.
05:27The earthquake itself was not the real problem.
05:31In reality, it was of a fairly modest intensity.
05:34However, it had triggered a gigantic undersea slide.
05:39When the ocean floor collapsed, it propelled a phenomenal volume of water.
05:44The waves reached nearly 15 meters, the equivalent of a four-story building.
05:48This is how we realized that a low-magnitude earthquake could trigger a devastating tsunami by causing an undersea flood.
05:57Worse still, this type of tsunami can occur without a real sign before the runner,
06:02because seismic warning systems do not always trigger in these circumstances.
06:06But what was the boiling and the effervescence of the water that some had observed?
06:11It was actually a sudden release of underwater gas.
06:15Under the ocean floor, gas pockets are trapped in the sediments.
06:20Among them, there is methane, present in oil and gas deposits, as well as hydrogen sulfide, or rotten egg yolks.
06:28During the earthquake, the seabed probably cracked or moved, letting its gases escape.
06:34This phenomenon caused a kind of boiling.
06:38In some areas, the water was able to warm up.
06:41And several witnesses reported that the waves were abnormally hot, even irritating to the skin.
06:47The presence of dissolved chemical substances in the water only aggravated this sensation.
06:52It is even possible that these gas eruptions contributed to amplifying the tsunami.
06:57Perhaps they destabilized the sediments that ended up causing this undersea slide,
07:02or they favored the elevation of the water at the time of their release.
07:06It would be like shaking a bottle of soda.
07:09If the pressure escapes abruptly, the reaction is spectacular.
07:13But what were the strange lights seen in the sky?
07:16This is a more complex question.
07:19There is a phenomenon known as seismic light.
07:23Observed in all four corners of the globe,
07:25they are translated by lightning, glow, or effects comparable to polar auroras.
07:30Their color generally varies between white, bluish, and multicolored shades.
07:35These lights can appear at any time of a earthquake,
07:38for a few seconds or several tens of minutes.
07:41If we rely on their description,
07:44the first red flash could have been caused by an electrical phenomenon.
07:48The earth's crust is full of quartz and other minerals capable of releasing electricity once under pressure.
07:55When the earthquake shook the ground, this electricity spread to the atmosphere.
08:00The gases already released before could also have played a role.
08:04They could have ignited or interacted with charged particles in the air,
08:09thus accentuating the brightness of the lightning.
08:12While the wave raised sand, rocks, and debris.
08:16Extreme pressure and intense movements probably generated other sparks.
08:21This could explain the strange reddish glow seen at the top of the waves.
08:26As for the yellow light, it could have been caused by these electrified gases rising in the atmosphere.
08:32Methane and other gases would have interacted with the Earth's magnetic field,
08:36producing an effect similar to that of a Boreal aurora.
08:40But all this is just speculation.
08:43What is most shocking in this story is that the Papua New Guinea disaster could have been avoided.
08:50Seismologists knew that a tsunami was imminent, although they were ahead of their predictions.
08:56The first wave broke out between 10 and 25 minutes after the earthquake,
09:00about five minutes earlier than they had anticipated.
09:03This means that its origin was immediately close to the coast.
09:08The reason why no one was able to evacuate in time is simple.
09:12Locals had no tsunami warning system,
09:15nor sufficient knowledge of these phenomena to understand that a quake could cause one,
09:21nor why the water was behaving strangely.
09:24This kind of event had not occurred in Papua New Guinea for more than 60 years.
09:29But this event served as a warning signal.
09:32From this tragedy were born lessons and a form of resilience.
09:36A year after the disaster, all survivors were able to follow a documentary detailing the causes of the disaster
09:42and teach them the gestures to adopt if it were to happen again.
09:46This initiative saved lives, because history has indeed been repeated.
09:51A quake and a similar tsunami hit the neighboring island of Vanuatu in November 1999.
09:57But this time, the islanders, sensitized by the documentary produced upstream, were prepared.
10:03Instead of panicking, they were able to react quickly.
10:06And fortunately, hundreds of lives were saved.
10:09Today, tsunami warning systems are in place in all developed regions.
10:14These systems can warn the population by means of sirens, SMS or TV programs
10:20as soon as a potential tsunami is detected.