The Salang Tunnel Disaster of 1982 | Episode 29

Do you like mountain roads, claustrophobia, and not breathing well? Well, have we got a road trip for you. We’re visiting Afghanistan, but we’re not visiting it for the breathtaking beauty - we’re visiting for the unrelenting brutality. On this episode: you’re going to hear about just about every bad thing that can happen behind the wheel; you’re not going to hear a lot of impact injuries; and there will be fire and people will suffocate as many ways as they can.Imagine being sealed into a narrow tunnel carved through a mountain. Fire and smoke and screams are everywhere. Darkness closes in as the temperature rises. Every breath becomes agony, and you still have a mile and half to go. Commuting is the worst. This is our first time in Afghanistan, and we’re here in time to take in some of the Soviet Union’s disastrous invasion during the 1980s. The USSR will become a staple of disaster on this show, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.We’ve certainly had issues on mountains on this show. We’ve frozen to death on them. We’ve been buried by their avalanches. We’ve fallen off them. We’ve even flown into the side of them, but we’ve never had the opportunity to crawl into the heart of one and suffocate terribly in one until now. Finding new and interesting places to die has always been a staple of this show, and the Salang Tunnel Disaster of 1982 certainly pays that off. Dark, suffocating, smelly, sooty, claustrophobic. And don’t forget all the fire. And the tanks. And the guns. It sounds pretty bad when I say it like that, but it’ll make you feel better about your commute, guaranteed. ––––– THANK YOU. Most shows survive at the whim of production companies and corporate sponsors, built from the top down. Doomsday doesn’t exist because some network exec believes in it – it exists because actual people do. It's built from the bottom up, and it’s been my privilege to bring you these stories. Just you, me, and a microphone. I don’t do this for you, so much as I do this because of you. If you'd like to support the show at Buy Me A Coffee, or join the club over at Patreon for AD-FREE EPISODES, LONGER EPISODES, EXTRA CONTENT, all that good stuff (I’m truly sorry about those ads, they're not in my control) All older episodes can be found on any of your favorite channels  Apple : https://tinyurl.com/5fnbumdw Spotify : https://tinyurl.com/73tb3uuw IHeartRadio : https://tinyurl.com/vwczpv5j Podchaser : https://tinyurl.com/263kda6w Stitcher : https://tinyurl.com/mcyxt6vw Google : https://tinyurl.com/3fjfxatt Spreaker : https://tinyurl.com/fm5y22su RadioPublic : https://tinyurl.com/w67b4kec PocketCasts. : https://pca.st/ef1165v3 CastBox : https://tinyurl.com/4xjpptdr Breaker. : https://tinyurl.com/4cbpfayt Deezer. : https://tinyurl.com/5nmexvwt Follow us on the socials for more Facebook : www.facebook.com/doomsdaypodcast Instagram : www.instagram.com/doomsdaypodcast Twitter : www.twitter.com/doomsdaypodcast TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@doomsday.the.podcastSafety google off. We'll talk soon. And thanks for listening. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/doomsday-history-s-most-dangerous-podcast--4866335/support.