Days of Fury

Explore the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering and human failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing the city water via aqueduct. The catastrophe killed more than 400 people and destroyed millions of dollars of property.

This film tells the real story behind the unforgettable Ron Howard/Tom Hanks film. In this film we feature the real astronauts, the actual footage and real events of Apollo 13.

The film explores the background and build-up to this final flight to disaster. Using dramatic reconstruction, archive footage and exclusive interviews with leading historians and engineering experts, the special delves into the political and scientific events that led up to the catastrophe.

On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 went down as it was leaving Iranian air space. All 176 people on board were killed, many of them Iranian Canadians. For weeks Iranian authorities vociferously denied responsibility, but foreign governments and agencies were certain the plane was shot down by Iranian military, a fact Iran’s government eventually admitted. There were no answers as to why the plane was fired on or even why it was allowed to take off, since hostilities had broken out in the region in preceding days.

This is a film about the response by a community to New Zealand’s largest environmental disaster, seen through the eyes of that community. The film captures the shock, anger and grief driven into the heart of the local community, but also the humour, purpose and overwhelming positivity when people join together with a common goal.

"1985: Heroes among Ruins" is a reflection of disaster. It is about the human solidarity, the search and rescue and the importance of civil protection, but above all, the triumph of the people over devastation during the earthquake of September 19, 1985 in Mexico City and the one ocurred in September 19, 2017.

The history of lighter than air transportation culminating in the Hindenburg explosion which gets thoroughly covered and analyzed.

From heart-stopping close shaves and averted disasters to incredible brushes with danger, this show counts up from 1 to 101 to feature some of the most unbelievable near misses of all time.

On 28 November 1979, an Air New Zealand jet with 257 passengers went missing during a sightseeing tour over Antarctica. Within hours 11 ordinary police officers were called to duty to face the formidable Mount Erebus. As the police recovered the victims, an investigation team tried to uncover the mystery of how a jet could fly into a mountain in broad daylight. Did the airline have a secret it wanted to bury? This film tells the story of four New Zealand police officers who went to Antarctica as part of the police operation to recover the victims of the crash. Set in the beautiful yet hostile environment of Antarctica, this is the emotional and compelling true story of an extraordinary police operation.

An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.

Two students from the Czech Film Academy commission a leading advertising agency to organize a huge campaign for the opening of a new supermarket named Czech Dream. The supermarket however does not exist and is not meant to. The advertising campaign includes radio and television ads, posters, flyers with photos of fake Czech Dream products, a promotional song, an internet site, and ads in newspapers and magazines. Will people believe in it and show up for the grand opening?

The "unsinkable" Titanic was a dream come true: four city blocks long and a passenger list worth 250 million dollars. But on her maiden voyage in April 1912, that dream became a nightmare when the giant ship struck an iceberg and sunk in the cold North Atlantic. More than 1,500 lives were lost in one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century. Now, using newsreels, stills, diaries, and exclusive interviews with survivors, Titanic: The Complete Story recounts the sensational history of the premier liner. In Part I: Death of a Dream, the largest ship ever built is christened in Ireland before a cheering crowd of 100,000. Witness the disaster this trek becomes as numerous iceberg warnings go unheeded and the ship sinks in the icy North Atlantic. In Part II: The Legend Lives On, over-packed lifeboats edge away from the crippled liner as a futile SOS signals flare into the night--leaving 1,500 passengers to a watery grave.

Friday, November 7, 2025, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the devastating explosion at the chemical company DSM in the Limburg town of Beek. Kefah Allush takes viewers back to this momentous day. The disaster is depicted through eyewitness accounts, personal memories, and impressive visualizations.

Neil Oliver describes the worst ever railway accident in the UK, which happened a hundred years ago on 22 May 1915, in which three trains collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green. One of the trains was a troop train taking soldiers to fight in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli: many of the dead were in this train which caught fire due to escaped gas from the archaic gas lighting in the carriages. The cause of the crash was attributed to a catastrophic signalman's error, but Neil examines whether there were other contributory factors and whether there was a cover-up to prevent investigation of them, making convenient scapegoats of the signalmen.

David Jones investigates how 1960s council housing came to be built so poorly that thousands later needed to be demolished.

On Christmas Eve in 1986, an Icelandic cargo ship sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. Of the eleven men on board, five lived. This is the remarkable story of the heroic rescue mission that brought them home.

A documentary covering the harrowing tragedy of the SS Morro Castle.

A minute-by-minute account of the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami told through amateur video footage of people who were there.

Follows the deadly Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, known as ‘Black Summer’. Burning is an exploration of what happened as told from the perspective of victims of the fires, activists and scientists.

The story of Australia’s worst peacetime disaster On 7th February 2009, Australia suffered its worst peacetime disaster ‘Black Saturday’ claimed 173 lives, left more than 7,000 homeless and destroyed close to half a million hectares of Victorian bushland