Number 10 Ramree The beaches of Ramree may look inviting but
the island, off the coast of Myanmar, is home to saltwater crocodiles, which are among the
animal kingdom’s deadliest apex predators.
These animals, owners of the strongest bite ever measured, won’t hesitate to actively
pursue humans as prey.
While their population on the island has diminished in recent years, saltwater crocs are responsible
for what the Guinness Book of Records has dubbed “the greatest disaster suffered by
humans from animals”.
During World War II, Ramree was a trading post that had fallen under Japanese occupation.
In 1945, the Allies went on a campaign to regain control.
During the Battle of Ramree Island, Japanese soldiers were driven back by British forces,
into the island’s surrounding marshes.
A massacre ensued as the saltwater crocodiles started preying on them.
As the beasts went into a feeding frenzy, blood, broken bones and organs, which had
been ripped open, filled the water.
Only a handful of men survived forever haunted by witnessing their screaming comrades being
devoured by crocodiles.
While the extent of the massacre has been questioned by historians, some estimates claim
that at least 400 and perhaps almost 1,000 Japanese soldiers perished.
Number 9 Izu Islands The islands of the Izu Archipelago, off the
coast of Japan, are severely affected by volcanic activity as they rest on the meeting point
of three tectonic plates.
In 1953, when submarine volcano Myojin-sho erupted, 31 people on a research vessel were
killed.
In the year 2000, the release of harmful gases on Miyake-jima Island prompted its immediate
evacuation.
Residents were allowed to return to the island 5 years later but were required to carry gas
masks with them at all times.
Mount Oyama, the active volcano on Miyake-jima has been steadily giving off a flow of sulfur
dioxide ever since the 2000 eruption.
Number 8 Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll is a reef in the Marshall Islands
that consists of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon.
All of the islanders were relocated in 1946 as the US started performing nuclear tests
in the atoll.
Collectively known as Operation Castle, the tests produced radioactive residue that affects
the islands to this day.
Craters can still be seen in the northwest cape of the atoll.
One of them is from Castle Bravo, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by
the US.
It was, at the time, the most intense artificial explosion the world had ever seen.
Before their cessation near the end of the 1950s, 23 tests were conducted at Bikini Atoll
in the air, on the sea, underwater and on the reef itself.
Then, in 1970, about 100 people were resettled on Bikini Island.
A decade later they were evacuated, when it was discovered they were carrying high levels
of the radioactive isotope caesium-137.
The radioactive island is now inhabited only by a handful of caretakers and visited by
a few scientists.
The removal of top soil and the introduction of potassium have potential towards making
the island more habitable.
Oddly enough, even if the area can be resettled in the near future, most of the islanders
alive today have never been there, which makes relocation problematic.
Number 7 Nazino Island Nazino Island, a small, isolated patch of
land in Western Siberia, was a site of unspeakable horrors that echo to this day.
It’s commonly known as Death Island or Cannibal Island.
In May of 1933, the Soviet Union abandoned about 6,000 deportees on Nazino, with little
in the way of clothing, shelter or tools and only with a few tons of flour for food.
Any societal structure on Nazino quickly broke down, due to a lack of proper resources and
survival skills, since most of the deportees were city dwellers.
Gangs formed and used violence to dominate the island.
People were frequently murdered for food or money while the guards abused their power,
extorting and executing people at will.
Anyone who tried to escape the island was shot and even if they somehow made it off,
they still had to deal with the harshness of the Siberian wilderness.
By late May, the lack of food drove settlers to cannibalism to the point that people were
killing each other for the sole purpose of consuming flesh.
One eyewitness report stands as testimony to the dreadful chaos that was Cannibal Island.
A young guard fell in love with a girl who’d been sent to Nazino.
He protected and courted her but, at one point, had to leave the island for a while.
The guard returned to find his love tied to a poplar tree.
A group of people, driven to madness by hunger, had caught the girl and cut off her breasts,
muscles and any tissue that they could eat.
She was still alive when the guard returned and he tried to save her but the blood loss
proved too severe.
Only about a third of those sent to Nazino Island survived while the others had fallen
victims to murder, disease, starvation or exposure to the elements.
Number 6 Bouvet Island To be stranded on Bouvet Island is a death
sentence from multiple perspectives.
The island itself, a dependency of Norway, is more than 90% covered by glacier and its
center is the crater of an inactive volcano that’s filled with ice.
Its coast is steep and usually experiences turbulent seas, making landing on Bouvet highly
difficult.
Nothing grows on the island, aside for fungi and, with the exception of birds and a few
seal species, there are no animals.
The cold climate is marked by fog and heavy clouds.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect about Bouvet Island is how far it is from any patch
of land.
Known as the most remote island on Earth, it’s at least 1,000 miles from land, in
any direction.
Number 5 North Sentinel North Sentinel Island, found in the Bay of
Bengal and part of the Andaman Islands archipelago, is home to one of the last tribes to be completely
untouched by civilization.
Its inhabitants, the Sentinelese, have repeatedly and violently refused contact with the outside
world.
In 2006, the tribe killed two fishermen who ended up on the island and in 2018 they killed
missionary John Allen Chau, who’d attempted to convert them to Christianity.
In other incidents, surveillance helicopters were met with barrages of arrows.
The Sentinelese tribe lives in a hunter gatherer society and has often been described as a
Stone Age civilization.
They do, however, know how to work metal and have built weapons from parts scavenged from
shipwrecks.
For more about the mysterious Sentinelese, make sure to check out our feature video on
North Sentinel Island.
Number 4 Danger Island Some islands are known for their dark history
while others are infamous for their ruthless geography.
Such is the case of the aptly-named Danger Island in the Great Chagos Bank, the largest
coral atoll structure in the world.
Even when the Chagos was inhabited, between the 18th and 20th century, people stayed away
from Danger Island and there were never any permanent settlements on it.
Much of that was to do with the the complete absence of any safe anchorage points.
Every visit to the island was thus dangerous for ships and their crews.
The danger has persisted into modern times.
In 2012, the Chagos Trust research expedition faced trouble landing on the island.
The group had to swim towards it from an offshore inflatable and not everyone was able to make
land safely.
Number 3 Bear Island Bear Island, the southernmost island in Norway’s
Svalbard archipelago, was named after a polar bear that was seen swimming off its shores.
While early Viking sailors might have known about Bear Island, its documented history
began in the late 16th century, when it was spotted by a Dutch Arctic explorer.
Bear Island has been used as a whaling station but no settlements have ever lasted more than
a few years.
The weather is cold and unforgiving while the land itself mostly consists of rock and
steep cliffs.
Long polar nights mean there are only about 600 hundred hours of bright sunshine per year,
the lowest average in Europe.
Not only is Bear Island dark and cold but there are also environmental concerns.
The Soviet submarine Komsomolets sank near the island, in 1989, when an accidental fire
broke out in the reactor engineering compartment.
The nuclear-powered attack submarine was unique in its design and a lauded achievement of
the Soviet Navy.
Severe pollution in the waters around Bear Island, from the submarine’s reactor and
warheads, remains a very real concern.
Today's topic was inspired by Gaming Soul Trap and Danne Maki.
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Number 2 Snake Island While the people of North Sentinel will use
arrows to repel the outside world, the inhabitants of Ilha da Queimada Grande will rely on their
deadly bite.
That’s because the small island, off the coast of Brazil, is home to thousands of venomous
snakes.
Should one walk the land, they’d soon feel the earth beneath them begin to slither.
It’s the only place in the natural world where the critically endangered golden lancehead
pit viper can be found.
Commonly known as Snake Island, it’s only about 106 acres, with varied terrain that
ranges from rainforest to bare rock.
In spite of its small size, there’s a snake for every 10 square feet, by some estimates.
No one lives on the island and a lighthouse was built in the early 20th century to steer
ships away.
Nowadays, it’s closed to the public and the only visitors are the Brazilian Navy and
scientific research teams.
Number 1 Saba In spite of its proximity to the coast, Saba
Island, in the Caribbean, has been struck by more storms in the past 150 years than
any other region on Earth.
The raging tempests include 7 category 5 hurricanes and almost a dozen category 3 hurricanes.
In 2017, the island was struck by hurricane Irma and, within two weeks, another hurricane
swept through the community.
Whenever powerful storms strike, the impact on the small Dutch municipality is devastating.
Landslides send boulders into roadways while trees are violently brought down.
Walls and roofs are ripped apart from homes while entire piers can simply be swept away.
Lives, from a community of less than 2,000 people, are claimed both by flooding and winds
of over 200 miles per hour.
Thanks for watching!
Would you spend a week unarmed on North Sentinel Island if it meant that, should you survive,
you’d get your own private island?