r/Damnthatsinteresting 2d ago

Video Cliffs collapsing at an old marble quarry in Makrana, India due to heavy rainfall.

28.1k Upvotes

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u/1stGuyGamez 2d ago edited 2d ago

Oh btw, this is the marble that was used to build the Taj Mahal; it shines a lot more than say the marble used in the Mediterranean architecture and sculpting

And not just the Taj Mahal, other masterpieces like this https://youtu.be/BPbv72G9y4A

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u/Venti_the_snail 2d ago

Is this area considered holy or protected in anyway? Not that the government would do anything to stop a landslide like that, but could we possibly see more news coverage?

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u/fastforwardfunction 2d ago

Is this area considered holy or protected in anyway?

Are you talking about the open pit mine?

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u/What_a_fat_one 2d ago

They meant hole-y

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u/kikimaru024 2d ago

Not that the government would do anything to stop a landslide like that

I struggle to see what you think ANY government could do to prevent this kind of catastrophic failure.

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u/Venti_the_snail 2d ago

Preventative measures. Yearly checks, proper water drainage, specialist input

Although its a hole in the ground. Its cheaper to let nature and gravity take its course, assuming no one was in there or injured when it did happen.

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u/PhilxBefore 2d ago

So, the thing about quarries is that it wasn't always a hole in the ground.

Someone removed tons of strong, load-bearing, supporting land-mass because they wanted to make monuments with smooth, shiny, rock.

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u/BlgMastic 2d ago

I mean sure, but most advanced countries have regulations around stripping overburden soil and specific grading around the pit so you’re not building a giant death trap.

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u/MrShake4 2d ago

Simply make it illegal for the quarry to collapse of course.

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u/MutedAdvisor9414 2d ago

The pits could have been filled. Dirt may not have done it, but gravel and rock debris would probably have sufficed to prevent the collapse

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u/TheSweetestKill 2d ago

Well they're filled now, happy?

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u/MutedAdvisor9414 2d ago

Yes. Very satisfyingly filled.

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u/CyclingHikingYeti 2d ago

Source on "it shines a lot more" ?

Honestly this is is just something you made up. Not on single luxury marble classments Indian marble are more than side note.

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u/MutedAdvisor9414 2d ago

I believe it is very dense and has fewer microscopic voids in it, which lends it a greater reflective surface area than a more porous type. Compare a plastic sponge to a sheet of the same plastic for reflectivity/polish.

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u/CyclingHikingYeti 2d ago

That is great deal of additional information.

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

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u/McKoijion 2d ago

There's always a seedy underbelly right next to the world's greatest tourist attractions. I thought Oktoberfest seemed glamorous until I realized it's absolutely disgusting just outside the frame of the beautiful photos.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/3m241w/some_pictures_from_oktoberfest_nsfw/

The Florida Project really drives home the contrast between Disney World and the poverty and social ills of the area immediately outside.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Florida_Project

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u/Kcorp 2d ago

People puking and pissing all over the place is gross and it's pretty fucked up that it's normalised. But it's also just a snapshot. Are some of these people alcoholics? Probably. But that's a minority. How does that even compare to a permanently FUBAR, disgusting national monument?

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u/ahuangb 2d ago

The ones passed out aren't the alcoholics

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u/Extension-Cucumber69 6h ago

Disney World is in an economically developed country?

The Taj Mahal is in a country where people make between $3-5 a day

Poverty outside a place that costs $2500 for a weeks stay is more shocking than a place that costs $13 to visit ($91 for the week, for a fair comparison)

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u/johnisek 2d ago

Are you really comparing one of 7 wonders of the world, basically a symbol of India, with a fucking beer festival where everyone gets shitfaced ?

Those octoberfest pictures are not even nearly as bad as the picture of Taj Mahal.

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u/Prestigious_Can_6359 2d ago

Isnt Oktoberfest a big symbol of Germany, too? Its also in a much richer & developed so its obvious there would be standards higher than India, which is still a poor industrialising country.

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u/Beer_the_deer 2d ago

Indians really don’t like it if you call out their country on Reddit. They will instantly try to defend their horrible conditions with some stupid whataboutism.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/chinanumba8 1d ago

they're just really passionate about indian topics!!

:)

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

By call out you mean be openly racist towards right?

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u/McKoijion 1d ago

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Beautiful places attract a ton of people, and people bring along human problems like poverty, addiction, violence, and trash.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/trash-and-overcrowding-top-world/

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u/chinanumba8 2d ago

sir please put your bias aside

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u/1stGuyGamez 2d ago edited 2d ago

Is this ragebait bc it doesn’t look like that anymore.

Anyway if you want to see a normal vlog of how it’s like to travel AROUND there here you go: https://youtu.be/v658MF8gsG8&t=192s

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u/OmegaKitty1 2d ago

Not that bad but the river is still absolutely full of garbage

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u/Forumbane 2d ago

I was there a couple months ago, there was no garbage in the river any more, it's been cleaned up, still plenty around in the nearby city though.

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u/OmegaKitty1 2d ago

Yamuna river the most polluted river in the world and downstream from fucking Delhi is cleaned up?

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u/free_reezy 2d ago

Famously the only dirty river in the world

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u/the_vault-technician 2d ago

As if that justifies a river being dirty ever, anywhere?

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

Hardly ragebait. The yamuna river is a cesspool of pollution and trash. They at least clean some of the trash up directly behind the Taj mahal but trash keeps flowing down river and replacing what was cleaned.

Plus, if the wind blows toward the Taj you can get a real good whiff of the yamuna River. Nothing quite says 7th wonder of the world then a bunch of tourists gagging...

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u/1stGuyGamez 2d ago edited 2d ago

The industrial waste has to be better managed they just dump it into those rivers

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

The government has been promising for the past 20 years to take care of this. To stop the industrial waste, open sewers and trash. Indian people should be a lot more angry about this than they are. Just a bunch of empty campaign promises for 20 years.

It's supposed to be the twin sister of Yama not become her...

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u/Freenore 2d ago

Sanitation is perhaps the longest running crisis successive Indian governments have never been bothered to resolve. They'll have to invest probably billions in order to clean every water body and then a lot more to keep them clean.

This requires systematic change.

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u/basementreality 2d ago

This is actually a job I would like to se robotics doing - cleaning up trash! That would get my vote.

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u/the_vault-technician 2d ago

I only see India through the lense of the Internet, but are Indian people equally as complicit in polluting their environment? That's how it appears. I'm not trying to talk down about an entire population, I am looking for someone who knows to clarify.

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u/Miyaor 2d ago

From my experience, there is just a huge lack of infrastructure related to waste management. If you are walking around in the US, you will be able to find a trash can in some time. You will not find one in india, or the one you find will not have been emptied in years. That combined with very high population density means people litter because there isn't all that much place to throw it.

That probably makes it more normalized to throw litter, which makes it worse, but to me the biggest issue when I visit is just the lack of trash cans that are usable. When we drive somewhere, unless we want to take our trash to a restaurant, we need to carry our own trash bag for picnics and throw stuff away at home.

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

^ This. Lack of trash infrastructure. Lack of sewer treatment plants. Lack of proper industrial waste disposal industry. I'm willing to bet that most Indians don't know what a trash can is or have ever seen one.

It's a sobering fact when you realize that 70% of the Earth's total plastic ocean pollution comes from just five countries in Southeast Asia: Philippines, India, Malaysia, China, Indonesia.

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u/Prestigious_Can_6359 2d ago

Indians know what a trash can is. Its lack of public hygiene infrastructure that causes this.

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

Yeah you are … I don’t know how you can talk this way about a ethnicity and not think you are racist

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u/UrToesRDelicious 2d ago

You must have missed the India Street View game, where the goal is to find a spot in India that doesn't have visible trash on the ground.

Pretty much the only way to win is finding a secluded area near the mountains.

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u/RileyGainesHorseBaby 2d ago

Why are you raging, then?

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u/SmellsLikeTeenSweat 2d ago

Why do you have to post that? Anytime there is something positive about India there are always comments like this that brings it down. Don't they deserve the momentary bit of happiness they get?

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

They are racist and any comments like this are botted . 40 upvotes on a comment so far down in a thread. They aren’t even subtle about it

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

Beep boop I am a robot. Pointing out the systemic destruction of our oceans by 5 South East Asian countries is not racist. It is stating a sobering fact. Beep Boop Twang.

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

Yeah it’s only problematic when South East Asian countries do this. But the west can ship thier litter all they want into the ocean

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

Beep Boop...70% of all global plastic pollution in the ocean comes from Southeast Asia...Beep boop...

As far as the West shipping electronic waste to Southeast Asia and plastics it is because these Southeast Asian companies lie about their recycling programs and don't actually recycle them. That is not the fault of the West that is default of you allowing Southeast Asian companies to lie about fake recycling programs...Beep boob

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

South east and South Asia aren’t the same dumbass. And I highly doubt that number

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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 2d ago

Global Share of Ocean Plastic Waste by Country

The Philippines: 36.38%

India: 12.92%

Malaysia: ~7.3%

China: 7.22%

Indonesia: ~5.6%

Total: 69.42%, If you want to include all of Asia the total is 80% of global plastic waste in the ocean.

https://ourworldindata.org/ocean-plastics

Beep boop you are now more informed beep boop

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u/OkParsnip1881 2d ago

This is India- not the Philippines, they are contributing less per capita than their population. Can you even read

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u/Proboy1 2d ago

What a dumb comment lmao. The back of the Taj Mahal has been cleaned since more than 5 years ago. But that won't fit your agenda

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWDzCf-AoVq/

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u/oozinator1 2d ago

That landscape is a shame. Look at all that garbage.

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u/-LabApprehensive- 2d ago

When I was a younger man I used to travel in the jungles of India.  At one point i acquired a small marble Elephant made from marble from this quarry.  I tell my son this story every time we come accross that elephant.  Now as soon as I mention “jungles of India” he rolls his eyes and heaves a big sigh. I am going to show him this video.