Flood in Myanmar: Hidden Dangers

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“At September 11, 2024, in the shan province of eastern Myanmar, the small mountain town is slowly disappearing beneath a torrent of brown floodwater.”

The local river, sweld by days of torrential rain, has burst its backs.

It now spills outwards, forming an unbridgable swath that surges through the town. Buildings, entire streets are swept away, as the ground beneath their concrete foundations dissolved into liquid mud. Trees are uprooted and sucked downstream, branches thrashing like drowning limbs. In the churning mass, bulky items tumble and swirl, tucked up and motorcycles, brick walls and chain-link fences, items of furniture, and household belongings, all are borne along by the fierce current. In the chaos, terrified towns people seek refuge.

“Some huddle on a few remaining rooftops still visible above the water.”

Others shimmy up telephone poles, or string together life rafts out of plastic bottles and rope.

A few, meanwhile, have been left with no choice, but to pit their own strength against that of the flood and swim for their lives. Among them, a 26-year-old Joel Hoffman and his brother, Silas. The two men struggle against the deluge, fighting to keep their heads above the rampaging debris filled water. We're now in the middle of this flood. We're surrounded by debris, hidden dangers, fallen fences and collapsed buildings, is barbed wire underwater.

That's when things like really start kicking around, okay, now we're in danger.

Joel, flails his limbs, trying to retain some degree of control. It's futile. The current whisks the brothers along, dragging them at full tilt through the flooded town. There's a crunch and a sudden sharp stabbing sensation as Joel collides with a tangle of tree branches. He instinctively grabs a handful of leaves and twigs, grateful for the brief respite from the current and opportunity to catch his breath.

Seconds later, however, he feels a fiery pain in his hands. The tree is full of thorns. Little needles that scratch his skin and tear his clothes. Every single tree in our path was like a thorn tree and so we're getting catapulted by the current into these like thorn trees.

“But we're like, why don't we hold onto this while we don't want to get pulled along by the current?”

Clean for your life. Somewhere nearby above the roar of the flood, you can hear silence calling his name, asking him if he's all right. Joel yells back assuring his brother that he's still with him. But after battling these floodwaters for hours, his body is spent. And as he cleans desperately to this thorn tree, as the current continues to claw at him, pulling and tugging from below.

How much longer can he hold on? He feels like at the end of a workout, we're like trying to lift. He even just tries to get up, you know? He's like, your muscles are done and your mind's like, why should we be able to do this?

Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes. If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice?

“Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extra ordinary situations.”

People suddenly forced a fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Joel Hoffman. In 2024, he's living in the mountains of Myanmar, where his elder brother Silas runs a small Christian charity. Joel spends his days working with locals, trying to make life here easier if he can. But when a tropical typhoon unleashes catastrophic flooding on their quiet rural town, two brothers would find themselves thrust into a terrifying new position of responsibility.

We're too able body young men. We know how to swim. That's more than pretty much anywhere else in the town.

We're in a position where we can maybe help some people in the midst of this. Joel and Silas venture out into the flood to lend a hand.

“But what they find is utter mayhem, a chaotic scene of panic, fear and destruction.”

The brothers will face collapsing buildings, hidden hazards, and utter confusion. And when the flood cuts off their only route back home, where they have family waiting for them, the stakes are raised once again. It's time to sink or swim. And I could feel the current like pulling my legs under this kind of humble debris. You're fighting for your life. You're trying to think of how I get to save you, how I keep surviving.

What can we do next? How do we get through this? I'm John Hopkins. From the noise of podcasts network, this is real survival stories. It's the evening of September 9th, 2024 in Southeast Asia. Across the shan province of eastern Myanmar, heavy rain drums against the corrugated metal rooftops of a small mountain town.

For days now, much of Southeast Asia has been swamped by torrential downpours, as tropical typhoon Yagi works its way across the region. Low lying areas of already experienced severe flooding. But up here in the mountains, the steep valleys act like drainage canals, providing the rainwater with some way to go. Still, the river that runs through the centre of the town has seldom risen this high before, prompting unease among some local residents. If it continues to rise, it could burst its banks, and in a region with very little infrastructure to deal with floods, the consequences could be dire.

A short distance uphill from the river, 26-year-old Joel Hoffman runs through the rain-drenched streets, is jacket pulled over his head. For the last few days, he's been keeping a close eye on the typhoon, as it barrels towards Myanmar. He's heard the reports of devastating flooding in coastal areas of Vietnam. But where they are, is high up in the mountains, the threat still feels remote. We were like not worried at all. We're in the mountains. You don't get floods in the mountains.

“That's kind of, I don't know, it feels like somewhat conventional wisdom. The water goes downhill. Why would there be a flood in our town?”

Joel splashes his way down a narrow residential street. Eventually he arrives at the place he's called home, since arriving here last summer. A small wooden house raised off the ground by slab of thick cement. He steps inside. He removes his waterlocked trainers and socks and heads upstairs for a hot shower and a change of clothes. Though he's only lived here in Myanmar for a little over a year, Joel has become accustomed to life in this bustling market town.

It's something he's always been good at, adapting to new environments, due in no small part to his upbringing.

He is the son of Christian missionaries, whose work still takes them all over the world. From Germany, where Joel was born, to India, Australia, Greece. I had a very adventurous childhood, you know, sitting on the top of cars, flying to new places, being in, well, some people consider like unreasonably hostile places. I grew up in India for like, first day years of my life. Early 2000s, India was a lot more dangerous than it is now.

That makes sense. Didn't use to constant changes and paradigm shifts in culture and background and environment.

“As I think that really helped me to feel ready in a moment where everything's changed in the course of like a day.”

Now, aged 26, Joel has followed in his parents' footsteps. After spending a few years doing missionary work in Canada, he came out here to Myanmar where his older brother, Silas, runs a small Christian organization in the mountains of the Shan Province. In a country blighted by social and political unrest, the work they do is challenging. The broken is in the country at the extreme. It's a really broken society or broken families. So the young people are the ones that really suffering. Because I, in the saddest part, they'll have smartphones in the internet, but they see what's out there.

And yet for most of them, it feels totally unattainable to, you know, even travel or to just visit one other country or to, you know, have a home and to career that somewhat fulfilling. Realistically a lot of our work was just navigating the chaos. It genuinely felt like every week was like, "Oh, what's changed? What's the new playing field? What can we do in this?"

It did feel at times great as charging because like everything you're playing on doing, it felt like it always was taken away.

But there are, of course, rewarding aspects too, like working with local kids and setting up support programs. Joel's brother Silas lives here permanently with his wife and three children. He has established the mission in a remote rural town. My brother's been there for over a decade. There's a balance between sharing faith, but also being practically helpful. And so a big part of what they're doing is community development projects and education projects.

“And so that's why join them just to help them out and spend some time there.”

It makes himself as useful as he can. But he hasn't found his time here easy for a variety of reasons, and now he's feeling the need for a change.

A few months ago, he made difficult decision to leave Myanmar for Australia, where he hopes to do something different for a while. He'll be getting on a plane in a few weeks time. It'll be tough, parting with his family, and the many local people he's met, but he feels like the right decision. A fresh start in the place with more people his own age, who speak his language, where he won't feel so isolated. I was with family, but there's still a sense of loneliness, where you know, I'm the only young person of my culture there, who I can talk with.

“I think the simple is, you know, play board games with or watch a movie with. So that kind of, at missing friendship, definitely weighed on me. It's a sense of loneliness there.”

I think one of the main things I was really hard was just feeling very lonely. It's around 5 p.m. on September the 10th. Joel sits in his brother's small kitchen. Watching the rain lash against the window pane. Silas is checking the weather reports on his phone. Silas is a decade older than Joel, but despite the significant age gap, the two brothers share a close bond. These 10 years older, so I looked up to my whole life. The cool, the brother that would take me to the arcade and there's a unique relationship there.

All day, Joel has been keeping tabs on the water levels outside, watching the rain collecting the street. The separate puddles gradually joining up to form large muddy lakes. The pavements slowly sinking from view. You're trying to monitor it in the back of your hill. I was keeping eye on this. It's still raining, but at that time we still fell. The water should have somewhere to go and it was moving. Despite the continuing rain, the floodwater in the streets does appear to be draining away. One advantage of living in the mountains is that everything eventually flows downhill.

But then, just as the sun is beginning to set, a power cut plunges the room into darkness. Joel and Silas look at each other. As the flood brought down a utility pole, could rainwater have steeped into the power supply.

Silas lights a candle and in the flickering glow, the brothers start sending out texts, keeping their loved ones abreast of the developing situation.

“We're like texting our family, we're overseas. Hey, you know, somebody here, the power's going out.”

And then suddenly, I don't even like around eight, nine pm, the internet cuts out completely and there's no cell service. We're essentially cut off from the rest of the world in that moment. This remote place suddenly seems more remote than ever. After eating dinner at his brothers, Joel makes the five minute walk back to his own house. Rainwater spills beyond the gutters, forming two torrents on either side of the road.

He sticks to the single dry strip of dirt running between them, picking his way carefully in the dark.

The town they living sprails across two sides of the lush mountain valley, with houses reaching high up the opposing slopes.

“Joel and Silas live part way up one of these slopes.”

But there are many who live further down, closer to the river where the flooding must be more severe. As he walks, he looks down the hill. The entire town has been plunged into darkness by the power outage. You can't see a thing. He quickens his pace, anxious to get home and dry.

The following day brings no let up from the rain.

Still without cell service, Joel spends the morning watching the flood levels rise in the street. Despite the evident seriousness of the emergency, there is no official word from the state authorities.

“Where they started getting dangerous was, there's no official communication going out of, like, hey, through these areas.”

Go to somewhere safe, what things like that, where there was just none of that whatsoever. But Joel is less concerned for his own safety than for the people who live next to the river. They are the ones facing the most immediate danger. Just before noon, he wades up the road to Silas' house. There, the two brothers begin discussing whether they should head down the hill to see if anyone needs their help.

Around midday, I meet up with my brother with how to decide where in a position where we can maybe help some people in the midst of this. Another thing about living in the mountains, hundreds of miles from any coast, is that most of the locals here can't swim. Joel and Silas are no Olympians, but they're both able enough in the water. If they don't try to help, who will? And so, the brothers start getting themselves ready. They gather together what few useful supplies they can lay their hands on.

Then, after saying goodbye to Silas' wife and children, they head out into the flood. They had brought one of his kids full floaties, like a little yellow swim ring, because that was the only floatation device they had. We didn't have life jackets or anything. They had a couple of ropes that we found lying around. I think I had a first aid kit. We were just like, "Well, this is what we have." But, you know, we're two able-bodied young men. We know how to swim, which that's more than pretty much anyone else in the town.

With their scant gear in tow, and with little understanding of what lies ahead, they set off a cross-tail. We had local friends from the churches, and it will work with who we knew were to be close to the river, so like, "Oh, hey, well, they probably need some help to evacuate their homes." And say some of their possessions, and on the side there was flooding assurance there, a lot of these people, everything they have is in their home. As the brothers approach the bottom of the hill, they begin to get a clearer picture of this unraveling disaster. It's complete pandemonium.

The river has swelled to several times its usual size, in gulfing the streets that lie nearest to it, inundating shops and houses. Ports of people stream outside, waiting through the ankle deep water, carrying young children and bags of belongings in their arms. Trucks and motorcycles plow through the deluge, seizing their chance to escape before the flood rises any further. There isn't an official anywhere inside. Fortunately, the river hasn't yet risen above the main bridge. Joel and Silas cross it, then make their way to the houses of some friends nearby.

And Ray will help some friends to backrate. I remember like moving chunks of water through like some like flooding streets, pushing some bikes to get it up to higher ground and things like that and helping people get situated with somewhere other friends and other churches where they could at least stay dry and have some food and think like that. Once their friends are safely positioned on higher ground, Joel and Silas turn around and head for home.

But before they can get there, they're flagged down by a gaggle of local school children shouting and waving their arms.

“They asked us to help that there were some people trapped in the school.”

It's a long like one of the main roads, a two sort of building. The ground floor is almost entirely underwater and those these two guys stuck on the second floor couldn't swim and they were trapped there. The brothers are exhausted from their earlier efforts and with the flood getting worse, they need to get home. The bridge back to the other side of the town is still visible, but only by a few inches. If it disappears, they'll have no way to get back. Still, they can't just leave these helpless people trapped.

And so, with one last glance at the bridge, they turn and head towards the school.

It's about an hour later. Joel and Silas have strong a length of rope from the street to the school building, where two men are trapped on the second story.

The current surges around Joel as he feels his way along the slippery line, foul smelling floodwater, lapping at his face.

“We're starting to get tired and the dangers start becoming reality through like, "Okay, you know, this water is totally brown. We're swimming in sewage, basically. Most of the housing have excess bits.”

And so all these tanks obviously have flooded and now mixing in with this floodwater, which is already dirty. We're swimming in that. There's like furniture floating by and it caught in the rope. Eventually, arms, raw, and arms shaking, they reach the school building. The stranded men inside are terrified, shivering violently in their sudden shorts and t-shirts. With reassuring words and gestures, the two brothers guide the men into the water, then steer them gently back along the rope. As regaining these two guys across, we're like, "Is there anyone else stuck here that you know, and he's out as well?" And they didn't like, "No, no, it's just us, just us."

They escort the two men to a safer spot. But just when they think their work might be done, they hear something.

“Turns out, there is a second school building, partially hidden by the first.”

And in this second building, there's a huddle of about 10 people, a mixture of adults and children, all screaming and waving their arms from the second floor as the rising water threatens to sweep them away. Joel and Silas grimly said about repeating the arduous process. This swim across with the rope, secured in place, then begin escorting the terrified people across the watery divide.

We set up one bridge from the street, the first building.

And then from that, the second building was set up another rope to kind of help people pull them along. With the women and children, like the Titanic, you know, we're in children first. We bury them across in its very hard, they don't even know the sensation of being submerged in water totally. And so they're like holding onto the rope and clinging to everything for your life, while we're trying to pull them along. And then there's a language barrier as well.

It's chaotic, noisy, a melee of frantic, rain-sugged limbs. Joel and Silas, coax and cajol, urging the townspeople along the rope. At last, they managed to shepherd all the women and children safely to the other side. There are still a few men stranded in the school. The two brothers are completely spent.

Ultimately, they are forced to make a tough decision.

We're able to get the women and children to safety and then end up abandoning the men. We're so physically tired by this point, like, struggling to keep myself about water as you're constantly finding against the current. If they go back again, the risk to their own lives is enormous. And so, exhausted and soaked to the bone, Joel and Silas weighed back towards the bridge. But when they get there, they make an alarming discovery.

The bridge, the only safe route to the other side, is gone. Submerged beneath the roiling flood. The brothers stare at the yawning expanse of water. Its turbid brown surface pop-mouthed by heavy rain. Slowly, they're both come to the same conclusion.

In order to get to the other side, in order to reach their houses and return to Silas's family, they're going to have to do something drastic.

And if anyone's in that situation, I would say, stay put where you're safe.

“But I don't know. For one reason or the other, we felt we needed the cross.”

You know, you're in the middle of the street. You're in the middle of the street, and then you're in the middle of the street. No, no, no. This street is my safe space. Do you think everything is safe?

Yes, exactly. This street is like a street where you just understand. A street where you're in the middle of the street or at the end of the street. A street where you don't feel like you're in the middle of the street. A street where you feel like you're in the middle of the street.

With this street. It's mid afternoon on September 11, 2024.

In the mountains of eastern Myanmar, in the middle of a flooded town,

brothers, Joel and Silas waved through the shallows at the edge of the river, scouting around for the best place to try to cross.

“Because the flood has now engulfed several streets on either side,”

the water is littered with obstacles. Some visible, some hidden. Treatops, telephone posts, barbed wire fences, concrete walls. All look dangerously in the murky muddy rapids. They kind of figured, "Where the river is the widest?"

That's where the car is going to be the least dangerous. Where the building density kind of reduces a bit where it's a bit more spread out housing, fields and things like that. That's a good area to cross. After a while, Joel and Silas waged the widest section of river.

And it is wide.

A near 1,000 foot stretch of fast flowing water,

broken in places by half submerged buildings and thick clumps of vegetation. Daunting as it may appear, they agree that this is the place. Cauchously, the brothers step forward, easing themselves into the deep water. In theory, the flow should be less furious.

But as soon as their feet are no longer touching the bottom, the current takes hold, whisking the young man down stream. With a flurry of kicks and strokes, they're just about able to steer themselves in a diagonal direction, aiming for karma sections, where they can grab hold of something and catch their breath.

And so we're kind of like leapfrawling our way across for these sections of strong current. As you hit the current, you kind of get pushed down the stream a bit. And then you're trying to find somewhere. I can get here from here to here with the current. I can take a breath there,

and make our way kind of help is catching along the way. As Joel approaches one clump of dense underground, you reach out and grasp the vegetation. Instantly, sharp, needling pain, fire through his hands. Every single tree in our path was like a throwing tree.

And so we're getting catapulted by the current into these like throwing trees.

“We're like, why don't we hold onto this while we don't want to get pulled along by the current?”

So we're like, "Clean for your light." That's when things like really start kicking and like, "Okay, now we're in danger." As he clings to the branches of the tree, feeling its thorns slice into his skin, Joel looks around wide eye. It's as if the dangers have melted flat.

Everywhere he looks, nailed, wooden stumps and sharp spars of rusty metal, protrude from the water like fags. The roar of the flood in his ears is definitely. He's increasingly powerless, caught in a situation where he beyond his control.

When on the middle of this flood, we're surrounded by debris, hidden dangers, there's fallen fences and collapsed buildings. There's barbed wire underwater, everywhere probably. Tin roofing, which is obviously like razor sharp,

especially if it's been like torn up. And it definitely felt like, "Oh, I'm very close to like my body just giving out." But they're in the middle of the crossing. They can't turn back now. Joel pushes off from the thorn bush,

and freshes his way across the next section of flood. With each stroke, you could be impaled on a coil of razor wire or electrocuted by a downed powerline. Instead, the carines into the remains of a fallen building, a tangled clump of concrete slabs and snapped wooden beams.

He grabs hold and cleans on as the current claws it in from below. And I could feel the current like pulling my legs under this kind of... clump of debris. That was definitely quite scary feeling of, if my muscles give out, if my strength gives out, I'm getting pulled under this, and then I don't know what's happening.

I think realisticly, I couldn't very easily die.

Silas is a short distance away downstream,

“pinned between the current and another clump of rubble.”

They call out across the divide. Each reassuring the other that they're okay, that they feel just about strong enough to continue. In the moment, they're adrenaline, and they're kind of focused like, "Well, you just need to keep going.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going." Here in the moment, you're fighting for your life. You're trying to think of how I move forward from this, how I get to safety, how I keep surviving. With trembling arms, Joe yanks his legs out from beneath the concrete slab.

He pushes off again, letting the current carry into the next tree. The next toppled building, the next fence park.

“On and on, he and Silas forge their way across the middle.”

Finally, with muscles searing, they find themselves around 150 feet from the opposite bank.

Separated from their objective by two final stretches of fast flowing water. And by this point, we can see the end, 50 meters away, but we all to recognize that if we get caught in this, it's very much the end. The current is pushing us straight into a section of debris that looks real dangerous. If you're caught in barbed wire underwater, you're going to drown by painfully.

That's where the current is pushing us. They need a place to rest, a safe haven to regain their strength before attempting this final leg. As luck would have it, there is a house just downstream. And the floodwater has risen so high at its walls that Joel and Silas are able to swim straight onto the second story balcony. They pulled themselves up and collapsed onto the tiled floor.

Much to the surprise of the homeowners sheltering inside,

“who stare in bewilderment at the two stopping wet strangers.”

While Silas tries to communicate with the family, Joel hears over the wall at the final stretch they still need to swim. The current looks fierce, causing powerfully of invisible dangers, creating waves and ripples. He looks up at the sky. They can't be long until nightfall. Attempting to swim across in the dark will be complete madness. But have to stay here for as long as they dare, recuperating as much as possible before making their final push.

Two hours pass. As they wait, trying to get some blood flowing again into their exhausted limbs, Joel inspects the water levels.

For the first time you notice that the flood seems to be slightly receding.

He can see things in the water that he couldn't before, dangerous, gradually reveal themselves. It's a section of wall that we were going to swim across, and but as the current goes down, we do notice that it's covered in like shards of glass embedded there, and like we are planning on swimming around across that. So thankfully, the water levels goes down, and we will see that. It's a good thing they waited, but they're not.

They would have unwittingly swam right across the glass covered wall, shredding their bodies in the process. It's a bit of good luck, but they can't delay much longer. It's getting too dark now, we have to get across this current. We don't know what's going to happen. We can't do anything in the night. The building we're on right now, cement construction, but it conveys the collapse in the middle of the night.

That's a real possibility. We've seen other buildings collapsed already, so. There was a sense of like a ticking time bomb. It's now or never. We have to jump and try this.

It's about 6 p.m. Joel and Silas balance on the edge of the balcony wall, getting ready to jump. They'll need to propel themselves several feet to clear a wall below. A wall strewn with shards of broken glass. But even if they're void that obstacle, who knows what lurks beneath the gloomy water beyond.

It's a risk they're going to have to take. Silas goes first. The older brother bends his knees and springs forward. Landing with a splash, several feet beyond the glass top wall. Joel nervously adjusts his position.

He plants his feet, sinks into a crouch, then pushes off sharply, hurling himself after his older brother. A stench fills Joel's nostrils as he resurfaces. Gasping for air, coughing up lungfuls of fettered floodwater.

powering themselves forward towards the bank, now less than 150 feet away. They're drained, weak. And then they see a literal lifeline flapping in the current. To their enormous relief, the brothers discover that someone has set up a rope from the flooded street to the dry ground.

They grab hold and begin pulling themselves along it.

“And remember like clawing my way along this.”

Your legs are like being all the way by the current and you're just like cleaning on. We'll laugh a little bit of strength. Joel grits his teeth. His head drops forward, like strands of hair tumbling into his eyes. Everything in his body is screaming at him to let go of the rope

to relax his muscles and allow the water to take him. If like at the end of a workout, we're like trying to lift. Even just trying to get up, you know, it's like your muscles are done. And your mind's like, "Why should I be able to do this?" For a body's like, "No, we're not doing this. We can't do this anymore."

He looks up. Silas is a few feet ahead of him battling the current. He watches the back of his brother's head bowed with effort. Knuckles widening around the rope as he inches closer to dry land. Joel drops his gaze.

Focus. He places one hand after another, repeating the process again and again until it last, he feels it. Solid ground.

For the first time in several hours,

I'm like feeling soil under your feet where you feel okay. I can stand, I can walk, I've made it. The brothers weighed up the bank until the floodwater's received to a shallow pool around their ankles. They make their way uphill, weave in through the water-loved streets,

bracing themselves for the damage their homes must surely have sustained.

“I remember getting to my house and we saw the water level”

had literally come up to with an inch of the floor. My house was up on a bit of a cement block, but it raised off the ground. The water had come up with an inch of the floor, so we're like, "Thank you, God."

It really felt like a miracle. Silas is reunited with his family, all of whom are safe. As well as Joel's house remaining intact, his truck and his laptop both vital for his work are also undamaged. On a personal level, the brothers have been deeply fortunate,

but many others have not. As reports of the devastation continue to emerge in the coming days, Typhoon Yagi is soon recognized as one of the most destructive, tropical cyclones ever to hit Southeast Asia. Across Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and beyond

the storm has wreaked untold havoc,

inflicting roughly $14 billion worth of damage,

and tragically claiming around 1,000 lives. In the wake of the flood, Joel and Silas's small town looks like a bomb site. In Typhoon streets have been washed away, leaving heaps of rubble and mud, where homes and businesses once stood.

The next morning, it was a disaster, and the destruction that's been wrought. Thousands of people don't have a home, don't have anywhere to stay, as that's when the kind of community effort kind of kicks in.

It was really hard for me to see. Even amidst all this destruction, in the days that follow the community spirit reveals itself to be alive and well. Joel and Silas try to play their part too. The next couple of days, this is a lot just a lot of driving around,

trying to organize food and clothing and things like that, and deliver to different impromptu community centres that have kind of cropped up for people or gathered cooking food and distributing goods. I remember in the following day, like really impressed to see how generous people were,

even for many of them, nothing but what they had they did give, were just really called us here. Over the next few weeks, Joel throws himself into helping the towns people recover after the flood. For the first time in months, he feels like he is truly able to make a real, measurable difference to people's lives.

There was so much to be done,

“and so many ways we were able to be helpful, I think.”

Just a time of feeling very useful,

and that's always very fulfilling.

It's hard to feel depressed and discouraged when you're being useful, and being of the meat it needs very practically. Helping out in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, puts a pause on Joel's plans to leave Myanmar.

he reappraises the situation again,

“and decides he will go ahead with the move to Australia after all.”

Not that the decision isn't easy one. I was way struggling with the instability. It was tough. There's a real sense of guilt I felt in leaving of like survivors' guilt of like I get to leave,

and leaving all this chaos behind. Indeed, the devastating impact of Typhoon Yagi is still being felt in the affected regions today.

The damage is left permanent scars,

and the work to recover by locals and charities goes on. Looking back now, Joel has a few possible theories to explain how he managed to survive his dramatic ordeal. A key element he says was a strong, fraternal bond. Having my brother there with me,

I mean, I don't think I would have made it about him. Practically, in particular, like we're helping each other, pulling each other's hands, like pulling each other across certain sections, and things like that.

“I think the combination of being there with my brother,”

I think the providence of God and I also just... I'm bringing up like being used to changes and chaos and adapting to new challenges quickly. I think that combination helped me to survive. A few weeks after the flood, Joel moved to Brisbane

where he starts working a more conventional nine to five job. It's an opportunity to reassess, to figure out what his next steps are. And while much remains uncertain, one thing has become crystal clear to him in the wake of the flood. There's a real sense of fulfillment and really gives your life meaning

in helping people and helping people in need.

“I think that's what I've taken out this whole experience.”

I desire to want to do that and figure out a way where I can make a living and have a career in that kind of work. Whatever that exactly is, I'm not sure yet, but that's what I'm thinking about. I want to continue to find ways to work with people

and help people out in crisis. In June 2013, the 23-year-old is working full-time on his father's farm. As the youngest and fittest employee, Eric is left with some of the toughest tasks,

including laboring inside a giant, swelteringly hot storage container, full of hundreds of toys. At the same time, Eric is left with some of the toughest tasks,

including laboring inside a giant, extremely hot storage container, full of hundreds of tons of corn. And it's here that a strange and horrifying disaster unfolds. A bizarre series of events leads to Eric suddenly sinking into the mountain of grain, swallowed whole,

like he's falling through quicksad.

Subsumed and crushed within around 1.3 million pounds of corn,

he is buried alive, barely able to breathe, and heading towards the rotating blades of the containers in machinery. Any hope of escape seems impossible, as every movement crushes him further. That's next time on Real Survival Stories.

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