Below is an amazing clip from the History Channel highlighting the 1980 Jefferson Island disaster. The Lake is located in Louisiana, and the disaster resulted from an engineering catastrophe at Lake Peigneur.

The footage shows a catastrophic event supposedly caused by an oilrig, which pierced a salt mine from the Lake’s surface and caused a whirlpool to form that resulted in a blowout from the salt mine mixing with water. The accident destroyed homes and property, caused Lake Peigneur to almost disappear, caused water from the Gulf of Mexico to flow north, caused a huge waterfall to form, and caused major ecological changes to a once shallow lake. According to Wikipedia, the “whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding terrain.” Amazingly, no one was killed.

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