VOLCANIC LANDS (4x52')

INFORMATION
FR / 2020-2025 / 4x52’ / 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: Argentina

West Indies (2024)
The eruption of Mount Pelée in Martinique in 1902 remains the biggest eruption of the 20th century. It gave rise to the first observatories and marked the birth of volcanology. From Mount Pelée to the Soufrière in Saint-Vincent, from Martinique's volcanological observatory to the seismic monitoring center, this episode meets the people who monitor these powder kegs and work together to better anticipate their wrath.

Canary Islands (2024)
In 2021, La Palma’s Cumbre Vieja volcano unleashed one of the Canary Islands’ most destructive eruptions in 500 years, forcing mass evacuations and devastating infrastructure. Thanks to precise monitoring and swift action, no lives were lost—making it a model for crisis management. But more three years later, the question remains: has normal life truly returned?

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.