Volcanic Lands (4x52')
VOLCANIC LANDS (SERIES / 52')
INFORMATION
FR / 2020-2024 / Series 52’ / 4K / French, English
Ekla Production / Ushuaïa TV / Directed by Eric Beauducel
Worldwide rights available
TAGS
killer volcanoes, biodiversity
SYNOPSIS
Scientists estimate that there are around 1,500 active volcanoes on our planet. At any one time, 20 of them are erupting simultaneously. They are known as explosive volcanoes, and their history is punctuated by cataclysmic disasters. When they are close to major cities, the level of risk is at its highest. By closely following the volcanologists who devote their lives to monitoring and examining these serial killers, we will gain a better understanding of how this profession has evolved, how they must deal with the complex relationship between people and volcanoes on a day-to-day basis, and how these doctors of the earth look at the world around them and at the powder kegs they regularly climb.
This series will take us to the heart of scientific missions, to the edge of the most active craters, but also to discover the populations and activities that have gravitated around these mountains of fire for millennia. It's an immersion into the reality of a job like no other, and a visual and spiritual journey into the complex and little-understood relationship that humans have with the most dangerous volcanoes on our planet.
In production: West Indies (Martinique / Saint-Vincent)
Canary Islands (2024)
In September 2021, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the island of La Palma in the Canary archipelago. The lava buried an entire part of the island, and more than 7,000 people were evacuated and 70 km of roads destroyed. It was one of the most destructive eruptions to hit the archipelago in five centuries. And yet, almost two years on, the management of this crisis is still regarded as a benchmark. During the three months of the eruption, the quality of the surveillance and the precision of the measurements taken by the volcanology teams enabled the authorities to take appropriate measures quickly and avoid casualties. But two years on, can we talk of a return to normality?
This film sets out to meet the people affected, the scientists and those who managed this major crisis. By looking back at how this exceptional eruption unfolded, following the missions underway today, deciphering the measures taken and the observations made, it will help us to understand the impact of this kind of natural disaster on a population and the decisions that need to be taken to minimise it. With the population on the rise, protecting the thousands of people who live on the slopes of the Canary Islands' various volcanoes remains a challenge.
Indonesia (2020)
Indonesia is considered to be the country with the highest volcanic risk on the planet. The island of Java alone has more than 40 active volcanoes, all of them explosive, including the mythical Merapi, one of the most dangerous in the world. With more than 80 eruptions, it is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Dominating the city of Yogyakarta and its two million inhabitants, it is a source of veneration and fear, and is the subject of close scientific surveillance. A little further west, off the coast of Java, the Krakatau volcano rises from the waves, the source of the most formidable eruption of the 19th century.