The Story Behind One of the Most Striking Photos of the Mount St. Helens Eruption After 40 Years

On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. It initiated as a series of phreatic blasts from the summit then escalated on May 18, 1980, as a major explosive eruption. The eruption, which had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 5, was the most significant to occur in the contiguous 48 U.S. states since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been declared the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history. The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes, caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a large bulge and a fracture system on the mountain’s north slope.

There’s a well known photo looks like taken by a dead man among astonishing photos depicting the eruption of Mount St. Helens. In the foreground, a red Ford Pinto with a vintage motorcycle hitched to its bumper is parked on a dirt road lined with trees. Behind it, an ominous tower of ash rises miles into the sky, seemingly just over the hill from where the camera is positioned.

Photo credit: Richard “Dick” Lasher.

But for almost 40 years, the context of the photo appeared lost to time. Where exactly was it taken? Who took it? And how did they make it out alive? Or did they?

Dan Strohl isn’t sure where he first saw the photo, but as the online editor at Vermont-based Hemmings Motor News, he’s come across it a lot. The image is particularly popular in automotive circles—1970s Pintos famously had rear fuel tanks prone to explode in rear-end collisions, so for car enthusiasts, the sight of one parked in front of an erupting volcano made for an apt visual metaphor.

And the more Strohl saw it on message boards and social media feeds, the more intrigued he became. “It got to the point where I said, ‘I’ve got to find out what’s going on,’” says Strohl, who worked in Roseburg, Ore., early in his journalism career.

Last year, Strohl began scouring the internet for every instance of the photo, in hopes of finding a stray comment that might hint at who took it.

He eventually found one.

A guy on Facebook named Gary Cooper claimed an old co-worker took the photo. According to Cooper, the photographer was Richard “Dick” Lasher, who worked with him at the Boeing plant in Frederickson, Wash.

Richard Lasher spent that Saturday night packing some gear figuring he’d head out first thing in the morning to get a look at the mountain before it blew. His plan involved hitching his Yamaha IT enduro bike to the back of his Pinto, driving up to Spirit Lake, then exploring the area via dirt forest roads on the bike. He’d leave before dawn and arrive at the lake right at daybreak.

Tired from packing, Lasher slept in an hour or two past his planned departure time. He swore in telling the story many years later that sleeping in that morning saved his life. Based on the angle of the photo and the surrounding terrain, it appears Lasher drove down toward Spirit Lake from the north, likely dropping down from U.S. 12 and the town of Randle into the forest roads of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. He possibly made it as far south as Forest Road 26 by 8:32 that morning.

The time the volcano blew.

Had Lasher made it to Spirit Lake, he’d almost certainly have died. According to John P. Walsh’s description of the eruption, Spirit Lake “met the full impact of the volcano’s lateral blast. The sheer force of the blast lifted the lake out of its bed and propelled it about 85 stories into the air to splash onto adjacent mountain slopes.”

Had Lasher made it even over the next ridge, he’d almost certainly have died. According to Cooper’s telling of the story, “Luckily for him, and he did not realize until later just how lucky, he was on the opposite side of that ridge in front, because the entire forest was flattened from the ridge down, and he was in the lee side and protected from most of the blast.”

He did, however, realize that he had to get out of there in a hurry. Though the volcano blew out a pyroclastic flow almost due north and Lasher found himself more northeast of the blast, one map shows that temperatures near where Lasher found himself rose to 680 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the same map, most of the 57 people who died that day were positioned to the north or northwest of the volcano, but at least four of them were in Lasher’s vicinity.

“He pulled over and attempted to turn around seeing as the ash cloud was heading his way and fast. In his hurry he bent the forks on his motorcycle,” Cooper continued. “He jumped out of the car and ran up the hillside to get some pics, thinking he might just die for it, and hoping someone would find the camera at least as it was a phenomomenal sight that filled the sky. The first picture he took was the one with the Pinto cocked in the road and the bent motorcycle still in the back with that HUGE cloud going up in the sky in the background.”

“He made his way back down the mountain after being quickly overtaken by the ash cloud. He was completely blinded, and had to drive on the opposite side of the road steering by staying right on the opposite side of the road heading into oncoming traffic, but encountered nobody going up. The car choked out after a while and he rode his bent motorcycle out of the mountains back to the room he had rented.

“The next day as soon as he could, he rode his motorcycle back up into the now really hot zone with his camera to get what pics he could. He was well into the red no go zone, when a helicopter saw him, and came right down and landed in his path. He was surprised to be arrested on the spot and flown out in the chopper and to jail. They left his motorcycle lay on the mountain. They also kept him in jail for a few days without letting him call anyone or even plead his case. When he finally got out, he again went back up there, (Not sure how) and was able to get his motorcycle back and I think later his car as well.”

Some of those photos that Lasher ended up taking of the aftermath, according to Cooper and fellow former co-worker Steven Firth, focused on those who didn't make it out alive and on the automotive wreckage they left behind. Both Cooper and Firth recalled Lasher showing them photos of burned-out vehicles with puddles of melted plastic underneath.

So, yes, the photographer behind that mystery photograph did survive to see it widely disseminated. Whatever became of the Pinto and the Yamaha, however, we don’t know. “So if you have a red Pinto hatchback with a lot of volcanic ash in the seams,” Strohl wrote in his article, “get in touch with us.”

Photograph of the eruption column, May 18, 1980. (Photo by Austin Post)

USGS photo showing a pre-avalanche eruption on April 10, 1980. This view is from the northeast. (Photo by Donald A. Swanson.)

April 28, 1988: The Roof of an Aloha Airlines Jet Ripped Off in Mid-Air at 24,000 Feet, But the Plane Still Managed to Land Safely!

It was just another routine inter-island flight when an Aloha Airlines jet took off from Hilo, bound for Honolulu, on April 28, 1988. Cruising at 24,000 feet, an 18-foot section of the plane’s roof suddenly ripped off, causing an explosive decompression, creating a gaping hole in the fuselage and sucking a flight attendant out of the plane.

The Boeing 737 landed safely at Kahului Airport on Maui, but it goes down as one of the most significant events in aviation history.

Flight 243 departed from Hilo International Airport at 13:25 on April 28, 1988, with six crew members and 89 passengers on board, bound for Honolulu. Nothing unusual was noted during the pre-departure inspection of the aircraft, which had already completed three round-trip flights from Honolulu to Hilo, Maui, and Kauai earlier that day, all uneventful. Meteorological conditions were checked but there were no advisories for weather phenomena reported along the air route, per AIRMETs or SIGMETs.

After a routine takeoff and ascent, the aircraft had reached its normal flight altitude of 24,000 feet (7,300 m), when at around 13:48, about 23 nautical miles (43 km; 26 mi) south-southeast of Kahului on the island of Maui, a small section on the left side of the roof ruptured with a “whooshing” sound. The captain felt the aircraft roll to the left and right, and the controls went loose; the first officer noticed pieces of grey insulation floating above the cabin. The cockpit door had broken away and the captain could see “blue sky where the first-class ceiling had been.” The resulting explosive decompression had torn off a large section of the roof, consisting of the entire top half of the aircraft skin extending from just behind the cockpit to the fore-wing area, a length of about 18.5 feet (5.6 m).

There was one fatality: 58-year-old flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing, who was swept out of the airplane while standing near the fifth row seats; her body was never found. Lansing was a veteran flight attendant of 37 years at the time of the incident. Eight other people suffered serious injuries. All of the passengers had been seated and wearing their seat belts during the depressurization.

Co-pilot Tompkins was flying the aircraft when the incident occurred; Captain Schornstheimer took over and steered the aircraft toward the closest airport, on Maui island. Thirteen minutes later, the crew performed an emergency landing on Kahului Airport’s Runway 2. Upon landing, the aircraft’s emergency evacuation slides were deployed and passengers quickly evacuated from the aircraft. A total of 65 people were reported injured, eight of them with serious injuries. At the time, Maui had no plan in place for an emergency of this type. The injured were taken to the hospital in tour vans belonging to Akamai Tours (now defunct), driven by office personnel and mechanics, as the island only had two ambulances. Air traffic control radioed Akamai and requested as many of their 15-passenger vans as they could spare to go to the airport (three miles from their base) to transport the injured. Two of the Akamai drivers were former paramedics and established a triage on the runway. The aircraft was written off.

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20 Haunting Images by Russian Photographer Showing the True Scale of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Igor Kostin (1936–2015) was one of the five photographers in the world to take pictures of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster near Pripyat in Ukraine, on April 26, 1986. He was working for Novosti Press Agency (APN) as a photographer in Kiev, Ukraine, when he represented Novosti to cover the nuclear accident in Chernobyl. Kostin’s aerial view of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was widely published around the world, showing the extent of the devastation, and triggering fear throughout the world of radioactivity contamination the accident caused, when the Soviet media was working to censor information regarding the accident, releasing limited information regarding the accident on 28 April 1986, until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

Within hours of the explosion on April 26, 1986, comrade Kostin knew he witnessed an event that would be engraved in history books. He was right. Reactor #4 at the V. I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant near Chernobyl exploded, releasing 400 times more radioactive matter than the bombing of Hiroshima. He was a skilled photographer and dedicated to his work. His professionalism and unbreakable will have made him immortal. At the very least, his photography will remain for centuries to come.

On the late evening of 26 April 1986 a helicopter pilot whom he worked closely with for his journalistic activities alerted him that there had been a fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. The fire had been extinguished by the time they arrived at Chernobyl via helicopter, and witnessed a war-like scramble of military vehicles and power plant personnel down at the scene of the nuclear power plant. He also experienced an odd feeling combined with high temperature and toxic smog, that was unusual for an accident scene. The motor of his cameras began to exhibit symptoms of radioactive-caused degradation after around 20 shots. The helicopter returned to Kiev after the cameras’ failure.

Kostin managed to develop the films, only to realize that all but one was unsalvageable - most of the films were affected by the high level of radiation, that caused the photographs to appear entirely black, resembling a film that was exposed to light pre-maturely. Kostin’s only photograph of the nuclear power plant was sent to Novosti in Moscow, but he did not receive a permit to publish it until May 5, 1986. His visit to Chernobyl was illegal and not sanctioned by the authorities. Pravda published limited information about the accident on April 29, 1986, but did not publish Kostin’s photographs.

This is the first photograph ever taken of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the only photo that survives from the morning of the accident. Igor Kostin was a photographer from Kiev who became world famous for his images of the the clean-up operation. The image is very noisy because the radiation was destroying the film in his camera. Of all the shots he took on that flight, this is the only one that wasn’t ruined.

The accident was interpreted as a major catastrophe by the global news media, even when the Ukrainian and Soviet authorities were trying to suppress any news regarding the accident. Kostin later received permits as one of the representative of the five accredited Soviet media to cover the accident site and the Zone of Alienation. On May 5, 1986 he ventured into the rubbles of the Chernobyl nuclear plant site and Reactor 4 along with the liquidators.

It was then that he covered the mass exodus of inhabitants of Pripyat and 30 km zone surrounding the nuclear power plant, before the 1 May Labour Day celebration. Dozens had died from the accident, mostly workers at the nuclear power plant.

Kostin died in Kiev in 2015 at the age of 78 in a car accident.

Liquidators clean the roof of the No. 3 reactor. At first, workers tried clearing the radioactive debris from the roof using West German, Japanese, and Russian robots, but the machines could not cope with the extreme radiation levels so authorities decided to use humans. In some areas, workers could not stay any longer than 40 seconds before the radiation they received reached the maximum authorized dose a human being should receive in his entire life.

The majority of the liquidators were reservists ages 35 to 40 who were called up to assist with the cleanup operations or those currently in military service in chemical-protection units. The army did not have adequate uniforms adapted for use in radioactive conditions, so those enlisted to carry out work on the roof and in other highly toxic zones were obliged to cobble together their own clothing, made from lead sheets and measuring two to four millimeters thick. The sheets were cut to size to make aprons to be worn under cotton work wear, and were designed to cover the body in front and behind, especially to protect the spine and bone marrow.

Liquidators clear radioactive debris from the roof of the No. 4 reactor, throwing it to the ground where it will later be covered by the sarcophagus. These “biological robots” have only seconds to work—time to place themselves by a pile of debris, lift a shovel load, and throw it among the ruins of reactor No. 4.

A team of human liquidators prepares to clear radioactive debris off the roof of the No. 4 reactor.

A liquidator, outfitted with handmade lead shielding on his head, works to clean the roof of reactor No. 3.

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24 Bizarre Vintage Photos of Steam Engines After a Boiler Explosion From the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

There are many causes for boiler explosions such as poor water treatment causing scaling and over heating of the plates, low water level, a stuck safety valve, or even a furnace explosion that in turn, if severe enough, can cause a boiler explosion. Poor operator training resulting in neglect or other mishandling of the boiler has been a frequent cause of explosions since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Boiler explosions are of a particular danger in (locomotive-type) fire tube boilers because the top of the firebox (crown sheet) must be covered with some amount of water at all times; or the heat of the fire can weaken the crown sheet or crown stays to the point of failure, even at normal working pressure.

This type of failure is not limited to railway engines, as locomotive-type boilers have been used for traction engines, portable engines, skid engines used for mining or logging, stationary engines for sawmills and factories, for heating, and as package boilers providing steam for other processes. In all applications, maintaining the proper water level is essential for safe operation.

In steam locomotive boilers, as knowledge was gained by trial and error in early days, the explosive situations and consequent damage due to explosions were inevitable. However, improved design and maintenance markedly reduced the number of boiler explosions by the end of the 19th century. Further improvements continued in the 20th century.

On land-based boilers, explosions of the pressure systems happened regularly in stationary steam boilers in the Victorian era, but are now very rare because of the various protections provided, and because of regular inspections compelled by governmental and industry requirements. Water heaters can explode with surprising violence when their safety devices fail.

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February 3, 1959 – The Day the Music Died: Photos From the Plane Crash That Killed Buddy Holly and Others in Iowa

On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died,” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie.”

At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the “Winter Dance Party” tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens, Richardson and Dion and the Belmonts had joined the tour as well. The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly chose to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who had the flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

Soon after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield. Everyone on board was killed.

Buddy Holly’s funeral was held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX, on February 8, 1959, drawing over a thousand mourners. Holly’s widow did not attend. On the same day, Ritchie Valens was buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery.

The event has since been mentioned in various songs and films. A number of monuments have been erected at the crash site and in Clear Lake, where an annual memorial concert is also held at the Surf Ballroom, the venue that hosted the artists’ last performance.

Holly's band, The Crickets, later memorialized the day in 2016 with a farewell and final concert called “The Crickets and Buddies,” where almost every living member of the band Holly helped form played tribute to the vocal legend’s passing.

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The Last Known Photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger Crew Boarding the Space Shuttle on January 28, 1986

This is the last known photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew boarding the space shuttle on January 28, 1986. Tragedy would strike 73 seconds into launch as the shuttle’s O-ring on it’s right booster failed leading to the separation of the Solid Rocket Booster. Extreme aerodynamic forces then broke up the orbiter. The crew compartment survived the break but the impact with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.

Crew members of STS-51L mission walk out of the Operations and Checkout Building on their way to Pad 39B where they will board the Space Shuttle Challenger. From front to back: Commander Francis R. “Dick” Scobee; Mission Specialists Judith A. Resnik and Ronald E. McNair; Pilot Michael J. Smith; Payload specialist Christa McAuliffe; Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka; and Payload specialist Gregory Jarvis. (NASA)

On January 28, 1986, the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-99) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts, one payload specialist and a civilian school teacher. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST. The disintegration of the vehicle began after a joint in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The failure was caused by the failure of O-ring seals used in the joint that were not designed to handle the unusually cold conditions that existed at this launch. The seals' failure caused a breach in the SRB joint, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB’s aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter.

The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The shuttle had no escape system, and the impact of the crew compartment at terminal velocity with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.

“The whole country and the whole world were in shock when that happened, because that was the first time the United States had actually lost a space vehicle with crew on board,” said former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, who flew three space shuttle missions during his career (in 1994, 1996 and 2000), and also served as commander of the International Space Station from October 2004 through April 2005.

“It was even more shocking because Christa McAuliffe was not a professional astronaut,” Chiao told Space.com. “If you lose military people during a military operation, it’s sad and it’s tragic, but they’re professionals doing a job, and that’s kind of the way I look at professional astronauts. But you’re taking someone who’s not a professional, and it happened to be that mission that got lost — it added to the shock.”

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger’s STS-51L mission, which ended in tragedy 73 seconds after launch on Jan. 28, 1986. From left to right: Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judy Resnik, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Michael Smith and Ellison Onizuka.(NASA)

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident, with the agency violating its own safety rules. NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton-Thiokol’s design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. NASA managers also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.

Approximately 17 percent of Americans witnessed the launch live because of the presence of high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. Media coverage of the accident was extensive: one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident. The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.

In this Jan. 27, 1986 file picture, the crew members of space shuttle Challenger flight 51-L, leave their quarters for the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. From foreground are commander Francis Scobee, Mission Spl. Judith Resnik, Mission Spl. Ronald McNair, Payload Spl. Gregory Jarvis, Mission Spl. Ellison Onizuka, teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Michael Smith. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Four crew members of the space shuttle Challenger leave their quarters Jan. 27, 1986, en route to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. The launch was put off until the next day, when faulty O-rings in one of the booster rockets caused the Challenger to explode, killing the full crew of seven. From front are: Payload specialist Greg Jarvis, mission specialist Ellison Onizuka, school teacher Christa McAuliffe and pilot Mike Smith. (AP Photo)

Christa McAuliffe and Commander Francis Scobee walk to a jet for a test flight at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Jan. 24, 1986. Scobee is holding his ears as protection against the noise of a jet engine. McAuliffe and Scobee are members of the crew for the Space Shuttle Challenger scheduled for launch on Sunday. (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin)

Classmates of the son of America’s first school teacher astronaut cheer as the space shuttle Challenger lifts skyward from Pad 39B, Jan. 28, 1986. Their delight soon turned into horror as the shuttle exploded about 70 seconds into flight. The boy in the white hat and glasses at center is not a schoolmate but is Peter Billingsley, spokesman for the young astronaut program. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members died in the explosion, which was blamed on faulty o-rings in the shuttle’s booster rockets. The Challenger’s crew was honored with burials at Arlington National Cemetery. (AP Photo/Bruce Weaver)

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One of the Most Terrible Epidemics in Chinese History: Rare Pictures of China During Manchurian Plague (1910-1911)

The Manchurian (or Pneumonic) Plague, a fiasco in the history of public health in China, came at a time when the imperial court in Beijing was at its weakest and the Republican Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen hadn't occurred yet. With a mortality rate of almost 100%, its outbreak would claim the life of ca. 45,000 to 60,000 residents of Harbin and environs.

Not only did the outbreak occur at a crucial moment in Chinese history, it also took place in a geopolitically highly contested area: Russia, Japan and China all lay claim to controlling this particular region.

These rare photographs of China during Manchurian Plague (1910-1911) are glass lantern slides that taken from the papers of Dr. Richard Pearson Strong, on repository at Harvard University's Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, and can be accessed by using their VIA (Visual Information Access) Search Engine.

Manchurian plague victims, circa 1910

Doctors' quarters and dispensary, plague hospital, Peking

Doctors' quarters, Peking plague hospital

Entrance to plague hospital, Peking

Isolation huts of suspects, Peking

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Survivor of 1972 Andes Plane Crash Recalled of Harrowing Experience When He Has to Eat the Human Flesh to Stay Alive

On Oct. 13, 1972, a Uruguayan air force plane, carrying the Old Christians Club rugby team, crashed in the Andes mountains of Chile. Facing starvation and death, the survivors reluctantly resorted to cannibalism. Among the 45 people on board, 28 survived the initial crash. After 72 days on the glacier, 16 people were rescued.

Survivors of 1972 Andes plane crash.

Survivors of 1972 Andes plane crash.

The flight carrying 19 members of a rugby team, family, supporters, and friends originated in Montevideo, Uruguay and was headed for Santiago, Chile. While crossing the Andes, the inexperienced co-pilot who was in command mistakenly believed they had reached Curicó, Chile, despite instrument readings indicating differently. He turned north and began to descend towards what he thought was Pudahuel Airport. Instead, the aircraft struck the mountain, shearing off both wings and the rear of the fuselage. The forward part of the fuselage careened down a steep slope like a toboggan and came to rest on a glacier. Three crew members and more than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash, and several others quickly succumbed to cold and injuries.

On the tenth day after the crash, the survivors learned from a transistor radio that the search had been called off. Faced with starvation and death, those still alive agreed that should they die, the others may consume their bodies so they might live. With no choice, the survivors ate the bodies of their dead friends.

Survivors of Flight 571 outside of the plane.

Survivors of Flight 571 outside of the plane.

Survivors of Flight 571 outside of the plane.

Roberto Canessa was a second-year medical student when the plane he had chartered with his rugby team mates crashed into the mountains. “Eating human flesh, you feel like you’re the most miserable person on the earth,” he said. “But in my mind, there was the idea that my friend was giving me a chance of survival that he didn’t have.”

Canessa broken his silence to tell his own story in a memoir, I Had To Survive. The specter of resorting to cannibalism haunts him still. “We had long since run out of the meagre pickings we’d found on the plane, and there was no vegetation or animal life to be found,” he recalled. “After just a few days we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive.”

Roberto Canessa in the early 1970s.

“The bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it?

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40 Incredible Color Pics That Capture Floods of Colorado in 1965

The 1965 floods of the South Platte River basin swept through the Front Range and Eastern Plains of Colorado leaving 21 dead, 250,000 acres inundated and $540 million in damage. Heavy rains on four consecutive days in three different areas of the South Platte basin caused flooding from Plum Creek, south of Denver, to the Nebraska state line.

The storms took place over the Greeley-Sterling area, the Plum Creek and Cherry Creek basins and the Kiowa and Bijou Creeks near Deer Trail on June 14-17, causing floods in 15 counties.

The main flood through the metro Denver area on June 16 originated in the Plum Creek basin after 14 inches of rain fell south of Castle Rock. By the time the runoff reached Sedalia, the water widened East Plum Creek from 3 feet to nearly a mile. The wall of rushing water swept away trees, houses, cars and livestock before plunging into the South Platte below Littleton.

The violent waters reached Littleton, Englewood and Denver at about 8 p.m., destroying 120 houses and damaging 935. Two hundred eighty mobile homes were lost and 16 bridges in Denver were demolished.

After the flood, Chatfield and Bear Creek reservoirs were built to control storm waters.

Take a look at these photos from Douglas County History Research Center to see what Colorado looked like during one of the worst floods in its history hit.

Destroyed automobile in silt north of Castle Rock, Colorado

Destroyed guardrail north of Castle Rock, Colorado

Flood damage - East Plum Creek near I/25 and Wolfensberger Road looking south

Flood damage - East Plum Creek near I/25 and Wolfensberger Road

Flood damage near Sedalia, Colorado, looking northwest

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Amazing Vintage Photographs of River Thames Floods From Between the 1910s and 1950s

The River Thames bursting its banks, rail lines being washed away, villages being turned into islands and soldiers out on the frontline filling sandbags – the Thames Valley has been deluged by the river many times over the past 100 years.

The most severe flooding incidents were in 1928 – when the river burst its banks, inundating parts of central London and drowning 14 people – and 1947, when a sudden thaw after a severe winter added to rivers already swollen by torrential rain.

These two events, plus the disastrous North Sea flooding of 1953 that devastated Canvey Island, killing 53 people, led to the construction of the Thames Flood Barrier at Woolwich, which protects central London.

Here are some historical photographs documented flooding on the Thames from between the 1910s and 1950s.

December 1915: A man with a wooden leg cycles down a flooded road in Berkshire.

December 1915: A man and a boy make a journey by pony and trap on the Staines to Windsor Road after flooding in the Thames Valley.

November 1926: A chivalrous grocer's boy gives a lift to a young damsel in distress during floods at Shepperton.

January 1926: Two women cross a flooded road near Staines, Middlesex, by means of a makeshift raft and a pole.

1926: Children sit on a park bench which has been flooded by the Thames at Windsor.

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