Nature Unleashed: Avalanche (2004)

It begins on a glacier nestled on a frozen peak high in the wild Ural Mountains of Russia, kissed by clouds, the top of the world. A lonely, forbidding place, it’s home to THOM CUSSLER and brother, JOCK, a pair of transplanted westerners seeking their fortune in Russia’s new capitalist economy. They run a hard-luck snowmobile tour business that takes adventurous winter tourists up the mountains to experience the ultimate extreme winter thrill. During one such excursion, a massive ledge of snow at the top of the ridge suddenly collapses and an avalanche crashes down! Only the quick thinking and expert driving of Thom and Jock saves them. The tiny village of Dubroz, nestled far below, is not so lucky. Avalanche sirens wail, but the panicked villagers barely have time to act as the avalanche crashes down! A wall of snow smashes into one end of the village, blasting-in windows, collapsing and burying buildings, tossing cars in the air like toys! From their vantage point high on the ridge Thom and Jock see the destruction below. Word of the disaster reaches nearby Kirovina, a booming mining town that a wealthy entrepreneur GEORGE ELKIN is developing into a high-class ski resort. Unfortunately for the Cusslers, his daughter, CALLIE, is an embittered ex-flame of Jock’s who’d love to drive the brothers out of business. But, in the peaks high above, the ice groans and rumbles under a heavy blanket of fresh snow. KATYA TATNOVA, a dedicated avalanche researcher, warns that Elkin’s mine has wreaked environmental havoc on the glacier and could produce a massive super avalanche that’ll wipe out the entire valley. Thom and Jock join forces with her as she tries to convince the residents of Kirovina they’re in imminent deadly peril, but her warnings fall on deaf ears. Then an even bigger avalanche kills one of Callie’s guides and some skiers high up on a glacier. By now Katya knows it’s too late to stop the coming disaster, a killer avalanche is imminent. All they can do is get out of the way. In the mountains, shifting crevasses deep in the glacial ice suddenly erupt like canons. Callie and Jock race against time to evacuate the Cloud House, her trendy lounge and nightclub perched high on the mountain overlooking the town. Meanwhile, Thom and Katya warn the town, but some still refuse to believe in their super avalanche… until part of the glacier crashes down on the Cloud House! Jock and Callie take refuge with two survivors in the subterranean “Ice Lounge” and find themselves hopelessly trapped beneath the now-wrecked building. Katya marshals a major evacuation of Kirovina, the people taking refuge in Elkin’s mine. Thom and Elkin convince a small group of rescuers to go up the mountain to try and rescue Jock and Callie from the rubble of the Cloud House buried under 30-meters of snow and debris. Below, Jock and Callie are running out of air and time as the snow closes-in. At the last moment Thom finally manages to break through. Jock and Callie get the wounded out first, and the rescue chopper barely gets them into the air when the entire glacial ridge finally collapses, unleashing a tsunami of snow and ice racing sixty-miles-an-hour down the valley, smashing and sweeping away everything in it’s path! In the grim aftermath and search for survivors, Thom fears Katya and the residents of Kirovina didn’t make it – but, then a rumble shakes the ground and a giant mine drill bores to the surface, freeing Katya and the evacuees from the buried mine where they took refuge. The lucky survivors are reunited, left witness to the frailty of human enterprise against the awesome fury of nature.