Desperate Hours

In this episode, we contemplate—from a safe distance—the lethal majesty of volcanoes, one of the planet's most destructive and spectacular natural forces. It is estimated there are up to 4,000 volcanoes on the Earth and every year about 50 of them are active above sea level.

The earth really moves in this episode as we take in scenes and stories from some of the most devastating of all the natural cataclysms: the earthquake. With all its pent-up power, nothing releases more sheer destructive energy than the grinding forces at work between the Earth's tectonic plates.

Things get personal in this episode as we really get under the skin to explore something that is a threat to all of us wherever we live: the epidemic and its global big brother, the pandemic.

Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, Donna in Bangadesh, Sandy on the Northeastern seaboard of the US. All terrible in their own way, even if they had such non-threatening sounding names.

A Nightclub fire on Rhode Island, New York. L'Innovation Department Store Fire in Brussels 1967. In almost every instance, the fire started or was inflamed because of negligence or ill-intent.

Flash floods in Brazil, the deluge that followed Hurricane Katrina, and the overflow after the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2015 are all, to some extent, natural phenomena. But is a changing climate making them not only more likely but their impact more severe?