- [Narrator] There are
some places on earth you should never visit, no matter how much you need a holiday. We're talking lakes that'll kill you in a single hour, caves
that will boil you alive, and radioactive islands where the rats will give you bubonic plague. I don't wanna put you
off traveling for life, but after watching this video, you won't believe just how
dangerous our planet can be. (upbeat lively music) Death Road. If you're planning a road trip, you might wanna steer clear
of Yungas Road in Bolivia. This terrifying track twists and turns along a sheer
cliff-face, climbing to a height of 15,260 feet above sea level. In places, the road is only 10 feet wide, with no guardrails to protect you from the blood-curdling 2,000 foot drop. Clouds of dust from the poorly
maintained track make it hard to see, while humid winds
from the nearby rainforest create regular rainstorms and mudslides. No wonder this place has
earned the nickname Death Road. Despite its deadly reputation, plenty of daredevil drivers
continue to use the route. Cars, trucks, and lorries often
needed to pass each other, forcing one vehicle to teeter on the very edge of the narrow track. During the 1990s, between
200 and 300 people lost their lives died each
year after losing control of their car and plunging
into the abyss below. Thankfully in 2006, the Bolivian
government built a newer, safer road which most cars
choose to drive on instead. And who can blame them? If you do insist on driving Death Road, which is technically now
illegal, though rarely enforced, remember there's no turning
back once you begin. You are not going to wanna make a U-turn. With places like Yungas Road, clearly the world can be a scary place, so staying at home and
watching YouTube all day is just the responsible choice, right? If you agree, you should
probably like this video and subscribe to "Be Amazed." I post awe-inspiring content that'll keep you entertained daily. Now let's venture back to the most dangerous places on earth. Naica Crystal Cave. Some of the most beautiful places on earth are also the most deadliest. Just take the Naica
Crystal Cave, for example. Located nearly 1,000 feet
beneath a mountain in Naica, Mexico, this underground cavern is crammed with enormous milky-white
selenite crystals. The oversized pillars were formed by volcanic minerals in water, which crystallized as temperatures in the cave system cooled
over thousands of years. Today, they're big enough
for several grown adults to walk on, measuring as long as almost 40 feet and
weighing up to 55 tons. But you might wanna
think twice before paying the crystals a visit
with your selfie stick. The cave is situated above
an underground magma chamber, which means the temperature
can climb as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity can reach 99%. As a result, the air is so saturated with moisture that sweat can't evaporate from your skin to cool you
down, making it difficult to survive more than 10 minutes without risking heatstroke,
organ failure, and death. Today, scientists who visit the crystals must wear a special cooling
suit with its own supply of chilled air, and even then, they can only tolerate the
conditions for an hour max. Yeah, I'll probably admire the crystals on Google Images for now. Snake Island. You'd have to be seriously silly to visit this island
off the coast of Brazil. Officially named Ilha da Queimada Grande, it's more commonly known as Snake Island. Beneath the treeline you'll
find a wriggling, writhing mass of around 4,000 deadly
serpents, just waiting to sink their fangs into
unsuspecting sightseers. These snakes are actually a rare kind of pit viper called the Golden Lancehead, known to be one of the deadliest
snakes in Latin America. Their venom contains
hemotoxins that will melt the flesh they bite,
destroying red blood cells and causing death in under an hour. These snakes are not messing around. But how how did the snakes get to the island in the first place? Well, Snake island was once
attached to the Brazilian coast, before several millennia
of rising sea levels separated it from the mainland. Because there were no predators and plenty of seabirds to eat, the stranded snakes thrived
to a terrifying extent. There are now estimated to be between one and five Golden Lanceheads for
every square meter of island, meaning that visitors are
never more than a few feet away from a slithering adversary. The risk is so great
that the Brazilian Navy has banned any human from
visiting Snake Island with the exception of scientists conducting
essential research. I can't say I'm disappointed. Death Valley. Imagine a place so hot
that if you get hungry, you can simply fry an egg on the ground. Well, that's a reality in
Death Valley in California, a boiling desert basin where
temperatures have been known to rise as high as 134 degrees Fahrenheit, or 56 degrees Celsius. That's the hottest air temperature
ever recorded on earth. Deep craters in the landscape trap pockets of scalding air, while four
surrounding mountain ranges mostly prevent rain
clouds forming in the area and keep the valley in perpetual drought. For this reason, every Death
Valley sightseer runs the risk of heatstroke and dehydration, with one to three deaths per
year from heat-related causes. Visitors also need to
keep a watchful eye out for the valley's teeming population of dangerous animals including
rattlesnakes, scorpions, black widow spiders, and mountain lions. Sounds like overkill to me. But if all that doesn't
turn you off visiting, whatever you do, don't take off your
shoes while you're there. In 2017, one tourist was hospitalized with third-degree burns
after walking barefoot in Death Valley, where the ground can get as hot as 201 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, just because you can fry an egg on the floor doesn't mean you should. Park rangers spend hours
every day cleaning up shells and empty cartons and
have informed visitors that their fried egg habit
has gone beyond a yolk. Bring a packed lunch instead, you animals. Oymyankon. Moving from extreme heat
to extreme cold now, nowhere will send a shiver down your spine quite like Oymyakon in Eastern Russia. This small town of 500 people is the coldest permanently
inhabited place on Earth. The average low temperature in winter is -58 degrees Fahrenheit, but has been known to dip
to a tooth-chattering -90. Given that the average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees Fahrenheit, you'd actually be warmer on the
red planet than in Oymyakon. Unsurprisingly, the chilling temperatures make survival difficult. Because pipes freeze,
most homes have outhouses with pit latrines instead
of plumbed-in toilets. It's hard to grow crops
in the frozen soil, so the local diet mainly consists of frozen meat and fish. Something as simple as a
flat tire or a lost key could be life-threatening
when every second outside brings you closer to a freezing death. Also, bear in mind that if you do die, the locals will have to burn a bonfire in the cemetery for several
days before the earth has thawed enough to dig a grave. If you do decide to visit Oymyakon, don't forget your wallet. Keeping warm is an expensive business. In order to go outside safely, the townspeople must wrap
up in thick fur coats that can cost more than $1,5500. As the average wage in
Oymyakon is $600 a month, many people take out a mortgage in order to afford the furs they need to survive. Even with furs, the air is so cold that it'll freeze your
eyelashes and saliva into painful needles
within just a few minutes. This place makes the
inside of your freezer sound like a tropical paradise. Horrible holes. What's 1,500 miles long, 44 miles wide, and full
of creepy creatures? No, not the queue for
your local McDonald's. The Mariana Trench, of course. Located in the South
Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Philippines,
this crescent-shaped scar in the seabed descends seven
miles into the earth's crust, making it the deepest point on earth. In fact, the Mariana Trench is so deep that if you dropped Mount Everest into it, the peak would still be
7,000 feet below sea level. That's deep, man. As you've probably
guessed, the Mariana Trench isn't a great location for a quick swim. Sunlight can't penetrate its depths, meaning that the water is pitch black and just a few degrees above freezing. The pressure at the bottom of the trench is a bone-crushing eight
tons per square inch, which is 1,000 times the standard atmospheric
pressure on dry land. That means that if you exited
your submarine at the bottom of the trench, any pockets
of air in your body would instantly collapse
under the weight of the water. Wave goodbye to functioning lungs. If that isn't bad enough,
it's also worth remembering that while thousands of people
have climbed Mount Everest, fewer than 20 have ever visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench. As a result, we know comparatively little about what could be down
there, lurking in the darkness. Scientists do know what's inside another of Earth's terrifyingly deep
ocean crevasses, though, the 407-foot-deep Great
Blue Hole in Belize. This giant marine sinkhole began life more than 14,000 years
ago as a limestone cave, before it was flooded
by rising sea levels. The hole is large enough
to be seen from space and attracts thousands
of tourists every year, but be warned, inexperienced
divers could easily find themselves struggling
against the strong currents at the sides of the hole, which threaten to send you plunging into the abyss. On top of that, it's full of sharks. Nature watchers have spotted
Caribbean reef sharks, nurse sharks, hammerheads, bull sharks, and black tip sharks swimming
in the dark blue waters. Luckily, sharks rarely attack humans, but anyone who's seen
"Jaws" will probably prefer to admire this mysterious
ocean hole from a distance. And before you start to
feel too safe on dry land, remember that the ocean
floor isn't the only place where you can find
dangerous gaps in the Earth. Just look at the Mir mine,
an open-pit diamond mine in Russia that's over 1,700 feet deep. Back in 2017, a leak
caused this manmade chasm to fill with 10 million
cubic feet of water, which is enough to fill over
1200 Olympic swimming pools. Getting caught in a flood
in a place like this would be pure nightmare fuel. Not only that, but the hole is so deep that helicopters are
banned from flying over it in case they're sucked in
by downward air currents. That's right, navigators
fear that warm air rising from the pit and meeting
cold air at the surface will create a powerful vortex,
pulling down small aircraft. That's a hole lot of trouble. Skeleton Coast. You can tell a lot about
a place by its name, and the Northern part
of the Atlantic coast in Namibia is no exception. 16th Century Portuguese sailors named it the gates of hell. The Bushmen of the
Namibian Interior called it the land god made in anger. Today, it's known as the Skeleton Coast, and as all these creepy names suggest, it's no seaside paradise. The Skeleton Coast is actually
part of the Namib Desert, a vast and hostile landscape
where drinkable water is nearly impossible to find. That means that even though
you're right next to the sea, you could easily perish from thirst if you didn't bring your own
supply of drinking water. If that wasn't bad
enough, the dunes are home to ferocious predators like
desert lions, hyenas, cheetahs, and jackals just waiting
to munch on any lost soul. Look closely and you'll
see the bleached bones of their prey strewn across the sands, a sinister reminder that
this place isn't called the Skeleton Coast for nothing. And this lethal coastline
has another secret. Take a stroll along its golden sands, and you'll find the rusting shells of around 1,000 shipwrecks. The waters in this region
are notoriously dangerous, with strong currents, submerged rocks, thick fogs, and roaring winds. As a result, ships have
been running aground on the coast for hundreds of years, adding to its ever-growing
collection of ghostly wrecks. Can you imagine surviving a shipwreck only to find yourself trapped on a beach with no water and a lion problem? Sometimes life isn't
just isn't fair, I guess. Life-threatening lakes. Did you know that some
lakes can be lethal? Well, it's true, just take Lake Karachay in Russia, for example. This picturesque pool is so polluted that spending a single hour
on its banks will kill you. From 1951 until 1953, the
Soviet Union used the lake as a dumping ground for radioactive waste from the Mayak Plant, a nearby nuclear waste storage facility. The resulting contamination was so extreme that the Worldwatch Institute, a US-based environmental
research organization, named Lake Karachay the most
polluted place on the planet. When it comes to working out
just how toxic the lake is, scientists use a unit called sieverts, which measures the health
effects of radiation on the body. Exposure to just one sievert is enough to cause serious illness, and
when it was tested in 1990, Lake Karachay emitted a deadly
dose of 5.6 sieverts an hour. That's enough to kill
you in around 50 minutes. As of 2015, the lake has
been filled with concrete in an attempt to limit radiation. Even so, scientists
believe that approximately one billion gallons of
groundwater have been contaminated as a result of the Soviet Union's decision to dump radioactive
waste into Lake Karachay. This has caused a 41% increase in leukemia as well as spikes in other cancer rates in the surrounding Chelyabinsk region. Not cool, comrades. But lakes don't have to be
radioactive to be deadly. The Boiling Lake in Dominica's Morne Trois Pitons National Park is a bubbling cauldron
of scalding hot water, and is actually a flooded hole in the earth's surface that emits steam and volcanic gases from
a magma chamber beneath. These gases heat the water in the lake to 197 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning any human who enters the water risks being poached like an egg. But you can't talk about dangerous lakes without mentioning Lake
Natron in Tanzania. The water in this lake
is extremely alkaline due to the high levels of sodium carbonate which drain into it from
the nearby volcanic hills. As a result, the lake has a pH of 10.5, nearly as high as ammonia,
and can burn any animals that aren't adapted to
its caustic conditions. What's more, when an
animal dies on Lake Natron, the salt-rich water dries out its remains and ultimately transforms the body into a hard, calcified shell. Just to add to its sinister appearance, the water in the lake is
crimson due to the presence of haloarchaea,
microorganisms that flourish in salty waters and produce
deep crimson pigments. Blood-red water covered in
petrified animal remains, probably not the best
picnic spot, am I right? The Devil's Pool. How far would you go for to
get the perfect holiday photo? If you're willing to risk
your life in exchange for those sweet, sweet likes, look no further than the Devil's Pool, right on the edge of the
Victoria Falls in Zambia, a narrow lip of rock is
all that separates it from a 354-foot drop into
the raging waters beneath. Thankfully, the pool is reasonably safe between mid-August and December providing you don't do anything stupid like practice your handstands
on the slippery rocks. Between January and July, though, Zimbabwe's wet season
sees rising water levels and raging currents which could sweep you over the edge with ease. But whatever time of the year you visit, you'll need to watch
out for the crocodiles and hippos that live in the Zambesi, the river which feeds the Devil's Pool. Is this high-stakes photo
op really worth the risk? Let me know in the comments below. Danakil Depression. The Danakil Depression has got to be one of the weirdest places on earth. This surreal landscape
in North-West Ethiopia looks like a radioactive wasteland, complete with neon yellow
craters and deep green waters. But don't be fooled by
its otherworldly beauty. This gorgeous volcanic
plane is out to kill you in pretty much every way you can imagine. For one thing, the Danakil
Depression is located at the junction of three
very mobile tectonic plates. Their movement causes regular earthquakes in the area as fissures
appear in the ground, threatening to swallow
up unsuspecting tourists. These cracks spew up thick
clouds of poisonous sulfur and chlorine gases, filling the air with the smell of rotting eggs. The movement of the
tectonic plates also leads to the formation of hot springs filled with scalding waters heated by the layer of molten magma. The magma heats up minerals in the water, creating a dazzling landscape of multi-colored salt-crusts
and crystal deposits. But don't be tempted to paddle. The temperatures in the
pools can be as high as 226 degrees Fahrenheit. If that wasn't enough, the
Danakil Depression boasts not one, but two active volcanoes. One of them, Erta Ale,
has a lava lake bubbling at the summit that occasionally overflows, killing anything it touches. This alien landscape may look beautiful, but remember, the Danakil Depression will not hesitate to Dana-kill you. Islands of doom. Imagine a beautiful tropical island. There's sun, sand, and palm trees, and an enormous concrete dome full of radioactive debris, of course. Wait what? Well, a radioactive dome
is exactly what you'll find on Runit Island in the Marshall Islands, found at the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Philippines. From 1946 to 1958, the US
military used the Marshall Islands as testing grounds for 67 nuclear bombs, causing terrible damage to
the surrounding environment. More than 60 years later, parts of the region are
still uninhabitable:. In fact, according to a
2019 study by researchers from Columbia University,
a coral reef there known as the Bikini Atoll is currently 10 times more
radioactive than Chernobyl. So did the US do anything
to solve the problem? Well, in 1977, the military attempted to clear up Runit Island by
burying radioactive debris beneath a 350-foot concrete dome. Worryingly, this structure
was never intended to be a permanent solution to the problem and is already beginning to crack, threatening to contaminate
the surrounding environment. And if the Marshall Islands
weren't terrifying enough, just look at Vozrozhdeniya,
an island near the south rim of the Aral Sea between
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The 77-square-mile territory
was used by the Soviet Union as a testing ground for
top-secret biological weapons, including specially engineered anthrax, smallpox, and plague. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the island was hastily
evacuated and all its labs and military sites were
left to the elements. In the last few decades, the
facilities have begun leaking, allowing super-resistant
strains of infectious diseases to bleed into the soil. As a result, it's possible
that local rodents and fleas could be carrying weapons-grade bubonic plague
and possibly even worse. Who'd have ever thought
a secret island lab full of deadly viruses could possibly go wrong? The Elephant's Foot. Did you know that if you visited
the location in this photo, you'd be dead in five minutes? Well, it's true. This weird alien blob is known as the Elephant's Foot,
and it's at the very heart of the Chernobyl disaster, one of the worst nuclear
accidents in history. In case you're unfamiliar,
in 1986, the Number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant in Ukraine exploded. Huge quantities of radioactive matter and fuel were released, with
radiation from the explosion detected as far away as Sweden. Several decades later,
the 1,000-square-mile area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is still considered unfit
for human habitation, although some carefully
regulated tourism is allowed. But one part of Chernobyl is strictly off limit to visitors. This is the Elephant's Foot, a lump of a lava-like
material called corium which formed from the mix of nuclear fuel and melted metal that oozed out of the reactor after it exploded. As of 2019, the foot is housed in a protective steel structure known as the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, which took two decades to construct and stands taller than
the Statue of Liberty. While you stand outside the steel dome, you're mostly safe, but if
you made your way inside, the consequences would be pretty nasty. After just 30 seconds in
front of the Elephant's Foot, the high-energy radioactive
particles colliding with you that would cause
nausea and dizziness. After 2 minutes, your cells
would begin to die en masse, and after five minutes, you'd be dead. One thing's for sure. It's never been more important to avoid the elephant in the room. Wicked water. When you think about the Bermuda Triangle, do you picture something like this? We've all heard stories
about vicious sea monsters, whirlpools, and deadly cyclones, but just how dangerous is it really? In case you didn't know,
the Triangle is a chunk of the North Atlantic Ocean
between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico where over
50 ships and 20 planes are said to have
disappeared without a trace. Conspiracy theorists have come up with some kooky
explanations over the years, including a giant man-eating
whirlpool, a gang of UFOs, and deadly technology from
the lost city of Atlantis. But while danger can certainly be found within the Bermuda Triangle,
it's more likely to come from the North Atlantic's
unpredictable weather than anything supernatural. The area is subject to sudden, violent windstorms called white squalls and water tornadoes called waterspouts, both of which are common
over sub-tropical waters. These unpredictable
events can endanger boats and aircraft, causing structural damage or forcing them off course. Given that the Bermuda
Triangle contains some of the busiest shipping
lanes in the world, it's hardly surprising that these extreme weather conditions would cause tragic
disappearances over the years. Just remember that for every
ship or plane that disappears, thousands cross the sea
without so much as a scratch. But unlike the Bermuda
Triangle, some specific parts of certain bodies of water can
be truly, abnormally deadly. In fact, this pretty little
stream in Yorkshire, England, is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. It's known as the Bolton Strid, and it's said that nobody who's fallen in has ever made it out alive. What on earth could make a
simple stream so sinister? Well, despite appearances,
the Bolton Strid isn't just your regular stream. It's a powerful river
called the River Wharfe, which runs for 65 miles through Yorkshire. When it reaches Bolton, the
river is squeezed through a tiny rock channel,
instantly narrowing it from 30-feet-wide to
just 6-feet across-wide. All that extra water is forced underground where it flows at ferocious speeds through a labyrinth of
subterranean chasms. This means that if any
passerby lost their balance and fell into the Bolton
Strid, they'd likely be caught by the current and dragged
down into the void beneath. The strange lesson here is
that you'd probably be safer swimming in the Bermuda Triangle than in a pretty Yorkshire river. You really do learn
something new every day. (upbeat lively music) What's the most dangerous
place you've ever visited? Let me know in the comments
below. Thanks for watching.
