Neat
April 25, 2013 – LA
TVIA – In 1841, Edgar Allen Poe referred to a maelstrom, or powerful whirlpool in the ocean, as a “whole sea … lashed into ungovernable fury.” Now 172 years later, a YouTube video titled “Amazing monstrous whirlpool” gives gravity to Poe’s words, though (likely) on a slightly smaller scale. Set in Dviete, Latvia, near the banks of the Daugava River, the video depicts a mysterious whirlpool churning — and destroying — all that enters. Huge chunks of ice? Gone. Floating islands of debris? Annihilated. “Swallowing everything dragged towards its direction,” reads the description by Jānis Astičs, “this monstrous whirlpool looks as if a plug has been pulled from the ground beneath.” Astičs isn’t too far off in his analysis, actually. While most whirlpools in nature occur as a result of fast moving currents meeting one another in opposite directions (often caused by ocean tides), the…
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