I feel the earth move under my feet

August 10, 2004 10:22 AM

Landslide caught on tape. Region Pounded By Heavy Rains. Japanese government officials inspecting an area battered by weeks of heavy rain catch a dramatic landslide on video. [note: realvideo]
posted by crunchland (34 comments total)

Sounds really cool. Too bad it's in realvideo. I vowed to never install that again. Anybody know of anything elese that can play this?
posted by jeblis at 10:42 AM on August 10, 2004

Too bad it's in realvideo. I vowed to never install that again.
Ditto. I'd be interested in another source.
posted by Tubes at 10:44 AM on August 10, 2004

It gives me a big blue screen that says: "500 Servlet Exception".
posted by dobbs at 10:44 AM on August 10, 2004

Looking at final shots taken from above, this has happened in the area before, maybe twice {near the open the square patch areas with no trees}?
posted by thomcatspike at 10:45 AM on August 10, 2004

{near the road the open square patches with no trees}?
posted by thomcatspike at 10:45 AM on August 10, 2004

Download Real Alternative to view Real audio and video, without all the cruft and spyware of Real's official clients.

Anyone figure out the address of the actual video file? The web page video viewer thing just comes up blank for me.
posted by mathowie at 10:58 AM on August 10, 2004

Yeah it just redirects before there's time to grab the url of the video.
posted by riffola at 11:01 AM on August 10, 2004

On seeing this, I am moved to quote the Bard (not from memory, from Googly) MacBeth, Act 5, Scene 5:

Enter a Messenger
MACBETH
Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Messenger
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.

MACBETH
Well, say, sir.

Messenger
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.

MACBETH
Liar and slave!

Messenger
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
posted by kokogiak at 11:01 AM on August 10, 2004

Here's a slideshow of it.
posted by crunchland at 11:03 AM on August 10, 2004

Real Player just don't wanna play on my machine, and real alternative spews about a missing plug-in. So to the stuttering slideshow: ne'er mind, eh...
posted by dash_slot- at 11:07 AM on August 10, 2004

You can see it here, in WMV format.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:08 AM on August 10, 2004

thanks crash.
posted by crunchland at 11:11 AM on August 10, 2004

Thanks crash! That's just freaky.
posted by riffola at 11:14 AM on August 10, 2004

I wonder how they knew where to set the line of sandbags, or whatever the barrier is, across the road...?
posted by crunchland at 11:17 AM on August 10, 2004

That was awesome and crazy and freaky and scary! That's a good question, crunch.
posted by ashbury at 11:22 AM on August 10, 2004

The BBC insisted Real Player create an executable without all the nonsense.

Here it is.
posted by the fire you left me at 11:26 AM on August 10, 2004

Oh wow, that was fun to watch.
posted by brownpau at 12:09 PM on August 10, 2004

I wonder how they knew where to set the line of sandbags, or whatever the barrier is, across the road...?
It may have happened before in the area. I'm guessing the road itself gave some clues like the weight of the forest above causing bugling in it.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:09 PM on August 10, 2004

Damn. Poor trees.
posted by scarabic at 1:13 PM on August 10, 2004

Here is my clue it happen before. See in the picture's right side an area above the road with no trees, shaped like a square. Then below the road there you can see were a landslide made a debris trail down the hill.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:14 PM on August 10, 2004

kokogiak - nice quotation. I think I recall that passage being referenced in one of the LOTR documentaries. Apparently, Tolkein was watching a production of MacBeth at a young age and during this scene became really excited by the prospect of a bunch of animated, ambulatory trees and moved to the edge of his seat to see what would happen next. But it turns out later there are just some people in the grove, making the branches move, or something, which disappointed him. But apparently the seed for the Ents was planted in his mind.

/paraphrase
posted by scarabic at 1:16 PM on August 10, 2004

That's the fastest bunch of trees I've seen in some time.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 1:53 PM on August 10, 2004

I don't quite get the idea that "this happened before there." These are large trees, decades old. Are you suggesting that last time was decades ago?
posted by ParisParamus at 2:34 PM on August 10, 2004

I think he means in one of the helecopter shots, there's a big patch of land closer to the camera than the site of today's landslide, where all the trees are gone, and there's a green grass meadow in their place.
posted by crunchland at 2:58 PM on August 10, 2004

In any case, one of the scariest images I've ever seen: ambulatory trees; gives me the shivers.
posted by ParisParamus at 3:23 PM on August 10, 2004

Ents!
posted by DaShiv at 3:26 PM on August 10, 2004

I wonder how they knew where to set the line of sandbags, or whatever the barrier is, across the road...?

I'm guessing that cracks had probably appeared in the road that indicated the instability in the foundation underneath.
posted by wsg at 3:48 PM on August 10, 2004

Wow.

I got to come within feet of taking part in an avalanche once. Was stopped on the TransCanada highway in the Kicking Horse Pass just past Golden, BC. They were clearing snow from a previous avalanche.

Hot, sunny day. Parked about three cars back from the plow. Killing time. Glance out my side window. And see the hill moving toward me.

It was so deeply wrong. Land isn't supposed to move like that. Nor snow, for that matter.

Fortunately, the snow stopped at the driver's door, instead of pushing us and the barricade down into the chasm. Whew!
posted by five fresh fish at 4:42 PM on August 10, 2004

What, no Japanese guys hanging on for the ride?
posted by NortonDC at 6:44 PM on August 10, 2004

I blame Stevie Nicks.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:53 PM on August 10, 2004

Download Real Alternative to view Real audio and video, without all the cruft and spyware of Real's official clients.

The received wisdom about Real is beginning to piss me off, really it is. Real ain't no worse, and in its newer versions, is in some ways better than many other mainstream audio/video players.

I don't use it; I think it's a Piece of Crap, but not in any significant way worse than the dog-fucking cheese disaster that is WiMP, or, god forbid, the puppy-violating mutant digital jizz-stain that is iTunes for Windows.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:44 AM on August 11, 2004

I don't use [RealPlayer] - me neither. It just won't work on my machine! For that reason, it is worse than WiMP, WinAMP and the rest. Or maybe i'm just blessed...
posted by dash_slot- at 6:16 AM on August 11, 2004

Thanks mr_crash_davis. Anyone manage to save the wmv video link? This is the first time I've be stumpt in a while.
posted by Mitheral at 8:15 AM on August 11, 2004

WiMP and RealPlayer and QuickTime should all be removed from your computer, and you should grab "Media Player Classic," which is a hacked-up version of WiMP back before it had all the DRM and shit, and has RP & QT support as well as a bijillion other codecs. IMO.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:06 AM on August 11, 2004