Why Is the Congo River So Dangerous?

The Congo is the deepest river on Earth, over 220 m, and its rapids are so violent they can give fish the bends. The Congo is the deepest river on Earth, with blind fish at the bottom. Here's why the Congo River is so dangerous. Why is the Congo River so dangerous? Not because of what lives in it. It's the shape of the land: a basin bigger than India, rain that never stops, and one narrow way out to the sea. In this video: the blind fish that got the bends, how a pool 15 miles wide gets squeezed into a gorge under 1,000 feet across, how kayakers with an echo sounder found the deepest river on Earth, why the current is strong enough to split one kind of fish into two, and why engineers want to build a power station at Inga nearly twice the size of today's biggest. 0:00 A fish with the bends 0:26 Start with the water 0:59 The edge of the bowl 1:17 The squeeze 1:45 Thumb over a hose 2:17 How kayakers found the bottom 2:54 Under the surface 3:42 Why it's so dangerous 4:04 It makes new species 4:46 The power at Inga 5:15 A very big thumb Sources: American Museum of Natural History: https://www.amnh.org/explore/videos/b... Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/congo-riv... Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc... U.S. Geological Survey: https://www.usgs.gov/publications/vel... Lamprologus lethops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamprol... Livingstone Falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livings... Inga Falls: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inga_Falls Congo River (EBSCO): https://www.ebsco.com/research-starte... Congo River (Mongabay): https://worldrainforests.com/congo/co... Grand Inga (CNN): https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/busine... Grand Inga (International Rivers): https://riverresourcehub.org/resource... The map, bowl and riverbed drawings are simplified sketches, not surveyed shapes. #congoriver #geography #howitworks