The five hardest to survive places on earth
Getting stranded out in the wilderness can be scary, but the vast majority of people who need a rescue service make it back alive. Unless you’re in an extremely hostile environment, it could still take you up to three weeks to starve to death or several days to die of thirst. The five places below are an exception, since they have either claimed more lives than others or would present conditions that would be impossible to survive in.
1) The Amazon rainforest
There are around 1000 deaths every year from people who have got lost in the Amazon jungle and then died from a number of conditions. Even though there’s a huge amount of food within the trees, unless you’re and expert hunter who has been trained within the jungle, then it may as well not be there. The tropical weather provides the perfect environment for infection to spread, and something as small as a cut on your finger could quickly make you very ill. Water within jungle streams tend to have high amounts of parasites and harmful insects, with mosquitoes being the main culprit. With how thick the trees are, you would be lucky to travel more than 3 or 4 miles each day, and with the Amazon being 5.5 million km², there’s a huge amount of it where it simply wouldn’t be possible to escape from.
2) Antarctica
One of the most interesting things about this continent is how bare it is, with no trees, shrubs or bushes growing naturally on the continent. The only plant life there are a few types of hardy winter mountain plants like lichen and moss. Due to the lack of plants, the animal population stay next to the coast, and inland there is nothing but snow and ice. Even next to the sea, there are no edible or useful plants and nothing to build a shelter out of except freezing cold rocks. Being stranded there without supplies would mean nothing to burn on a fire and no way of keeping warm, making survival time there a matter of hours at best.
3) Sahara desert
Every year there around 2000 people who go missing in the sahara and are either later found dead or never found at all. With a total land area of 9.2 million km² and spanning across multiple countries, the sahara is the largest hot desert in the world. Temperatures can regularly get close to 50 °C, and without huge amounts of water or proper shelter from the sun, there’s little chance that you’ll be able to walk more than a few miles. No matter where you are in the desert or what kind of shelter you have, the amount of water lost through sweat alone would be enough to make someone pass out, never to wake up again. With heat stroke and everything from hallucinations to migraines, it’s no wonder this enormous expanse of nothing claims more lives each year than any other natural terrain.
4) Greenland
This one might seem a little strange as it’s classed as a first world territory with a population of around 55,000. The majority of the island is made up of one giant glacier that’s stopped by a mountain range, with all the settlements on the other side next to the sea. Even though it has thousands of people living there, they rarely leave their villages and are often stuck there due to the environment. Take the village of Igtaralivit for example, a small settlement on the east side of the island, with the next nearest village being Ittoqqortoormiit (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) about 11 miles away. This may not seem too bad but those 11 miles consist of walking along a frozen coastline in – 40 °C, and somehow managing to cross 3 major glacier run-offs, mountain streams and ice covered rocks, and if you have an accident there would be no one to reach you before you froze to death.
5) Dasht-e Lut
Known more commonly as the Lut desert, this 51,800 km² area in Iran is home to nothing but sand and rocks, and has won the title of the hottest place on earth numerous times, topping out at 70.7° C. This temperature would be impossible to survive in, which is why there are no plants or animals that call this place home. The area sees such little rainfall that not even cactus are able to survive there, and huge expanses of the desert are completely void of human life due to the desert having literally nothing of use. In a country like Iran, if the locals consider a place too hot for them to even visit, then you should probably stay away.