The year is 2020. The world’s greatest superpower faces the ultimate threat. Not nuclear war, nor a terrorist attack, but the eruption of a gigantic super-volcano, simmering beneath Yellowstone Park. The consequences are too catastrophic to contemplate. Rick Lieberman has the unenviable task of warning an unprepared world.
Filmed in High Definition, Supervolcano is a dramatised version of probable events, should the super-volcano ever erupt at full force. The film has all the elements and special effects of a Hollywood disaster movie; the fact that it might happen one day makes it especially chilling.
The last super-volcanic eruption occurred 74,000 years ago. It plunged the world into darkness for six years, tipped us into the last Ice Age and reduced the human population to just 2,000 people.
No one disputes that a super-volcano exists beneath Yellowstone Park. Its hot springs, geysers and bubbling mud pools are all outward manifestations of the presence of a huge body of magma, not far beneath the earth. The land around Yellowstone also regularly swells and subsides, each slow breath raising the ground level by up to 20 metres. Scientists know that one day this molten lava bulging against the Earth’s crust will burst through. It’s just a question of when.
When Yellowstone erupts, civilisation will be brought to its knees. One billion people will die, the USA will be obliterated and the world thrust into a volcanic winter that could persist for decades. It is virtually impossible to predict when this eruption will take place. Yet that is the momentous responsibility of the scientists monitoring Yellowstone. They report to local and national politicians but aware of the risk of causing mass panic, no one wants to make a false call.
Based on the predictions of top volcano experts and the detailed planning and evacuation scenarios of government agencies, this powerful, fact-based thriller plays out the drama faced by the people responsible for predicting such a cataclysmic event.
The debate between scientists, politicians, the press and the business community is felt first on a local, then national, then global level, followed by the challenge of preparing the public for the devastation to come. State-of-the-art computer graphics integrated with mock-factual sources create a horrifyingly realistic build-up to the eruption and its devastating aftermath – a post-apocalyptic world.
Premieres Tuesdays, 9 & 16 February, at 10pm (SIN/HK); 9pm (WIB); 11pm (KOR).
Episode 1 premieres 9 February
Episode 2 premieres 16 February
Don’t miss the premiere of the companion programme Supervolcano - The Truth About Yellowstone on Tuesday, 23 February, at 10pm (SIN/HK); 9pm (WIB); 11pm (KOR).
Subtitled in Bahasa and Traditional Chinese.