Mega Disasters

65 million years ago a massive asteroid crashed into Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. 75% of all life on earth vanished; but could a single asteroid have been the lone killer? Theories about what happened after the impact have been speculated on by the entire scientific community. Ranging from global warming to lethal worldwide firestorms, ideas have been put forth--but none have been proven.

In 6,000 B.C., 8,000 years before the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, waves taller than the Statue of Liberty ravaged the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, devastating ancient villages and killing untold numbers. Watch as a team of scientist's piece together evidence of this mega storm and reveal the face of this ancient tsunami for the first time.

Could the biblical story of Noah be true? 8,000 years ago, rising sea levels had global oceans surging. With the power of all the world's oceans at its back, the Mediterranean Sea burst through the Bosporus Strait in modern-day Turkey with cataclysmic force. When the flood was over the sea had claimed a landmass twice the size of Ireland.

13,000 years ago, a large comet exploded over eastern Canada unleashing a mass of burning fragments that ignited a mega storm of fire spreading for thousands of miles. Nearly every living thing on the North American continent was destroyed, including an ancient civilization known as the Clovis.

The largest volcanic eruption of the past two million years occurred on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, 75,000 years ago. The impact from the super volcano Toba decimated the local habitat, but gas, ash and debris from Toba made their way around the planet and formed a shield in the atmosphere that deflected the sun's warming rays.

March, 1996. A freight train carrying roughly one-million pounds of propane derails in Weyauwega, Wisconsin. One of the tankers goes off like a bomb and the entire town is evacuated. In 2001, a train tunnel fire billows clouds of hydrochloric acid over Baltimore's downtown core. Luckily, neither accident resulted in injury or death.

Modern dams are marvels of engineering but after decades of neglect the U.S. infrastructure is in crisis and by 2020, 85% of U.S. dams may be near their breaking point. When the South Fork Dam near Johnstown, PA gave way in a storm in 1889, killing 2200 people, it was the worst disaster in U.S. history.

Could the island nation of Great Britain have once been connected to Europe by land? Listen to a new theory and evidence which suggests that the English Channel was created by one of the largest floods ever. Did a violent storm re-shape the European continent?

Anthrax is the most feared of all the biological weapons--spores entering the body through the lungs are lethal. In 2001, a simple letter, sent through the US mail, paralyzed a nation, when anthrax spores were found inside.