Topics: News, World News, Nature
Driving comes with a wild bevy of hazards you might face while out on the road.
Whether it's more common things like pedestrians or other drivers, or more region-specific hazards like floods or moose, you should always be aware.
Imagine the terror of drivers who were travelling along a road in Chongzhou, in China's western province Sichuan. A shocking video shows road being completely demolished by an enormous landslide.
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And when I say enormous, it looks like the mountain itself is moving.
The video was posted to the Weather Channel's official TikTok page. Lasting about 20 seconds, it initially looks as though the landslide is in progress but is nearly over.
But this could not be further from the truth.
A few seconds into the video an enormous mass of earth, stone, and vegetation looms over the road. It comes in slowly at first, gathering momentum before crashing over the road like a tsunami.
Fully grown trees can be seen being tossed around like twigs in the force of the landslide, before disappearing beneath the boiling earth.
Fortunately the two cars in the video, one on camera and one carrying the cameraman, are far enough away to escape the impact of the landslide. They immediately start backing up rapidly.
Needless to say, what road had stretched out in front of them is simply gone.
The Weather Channel reported that luckily no-one was injured during the incident.
While landslides are not the most common natural disaster in China, they occur often enough that people are able to spot the warning signs that one may be about to happen.
Some of the signs to watch out for, which also occur in the USA, include seeing a spring or seep or water-saturated ground in an area which was not wet before.
More superficially, you can also look out for large cracks in concrete or tarmac structures such as roads, as well as telegraph poles, fences, or trees starting to lean.
In the short term, you can listen out for a low rumbling sound which could indicate that there is a lot of earth moving nearby.
People took to the comments to express their terror at the force of nature.
One said: "Good Lord, I thought I would never stop. That’s the whole mountain side."
Another replied: "I already don’t like driving on the side of mountains. This just gives me a whole other level of worry."
A third posted: "That was certain death had he been in proximity."
