Moments before disaster: From world-shaking events to personal tragedies… haunting final moments caught on camera and the stories behind them

Haunting photographs have captured for decades the eerie moments before disaster struck.

Often depicting normal, seemingly happy scenes, these images serve as a chilling reminder of how people’s lives can change in an instant.

Last month, a woman’s final moments were captured on camera as she fell to her death in an underpass and the video went viral.

Arina Glazunova, 24, was being filmed by her friend singing and dancing through the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, when she tripped over a wall and fell several meters.

She was rushed to hospital but later died from a broken neck and head injuries.

Here, MailOnline takes a look at a series of harrowing photos taken shortly before the tragedy struck.

Arina Glazunova, 24, was being filmed by her friend singing and dancing in the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, when the horrific incident occurred.

Indian ‘Houdini’ is lowered into the river

Magician Chanchal Lahiri was lowered by a winch into a river in Kolkata wearing a yellow and red costume and with his legs and arms tightly tied.

This photograph shows the moment an Indian ‘Houdini’ was thrown into a river, never to emerge again.

Magician Chanchal Lahiri, 40, attempted the Houdini-inspired stunt on the Hooghly River in Kolkata in June 2019.

He was lowered into the water using a winch, wearing a yellow and red costume and with his legs and arms securely bound by chains.

But to the horror of onlookers, including his family, the 40-year-old was unable to get out of the water.

His body was later found by police after a frantic search. He had drowned.

Lahiri said that before the daring feat he had achieved a similar feat 21 years ago at the same location in Kolkata.

‘I was inside a bulletproof glass box tied with chains and padlocks and fell off the Howrah Bridge. So I left in 29 seconds.

He admitted that it would be difficult to break free this time.

“If I can open it, it will be magical, but if I can’t, it will be tragic,” he said.

Crew boards doomed space shuttle

The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger leaves on January 28, 1986, from NASA headquarters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This is the last photo taken of the crew of the doomed space shuttle Challenger that crashed during liftoff on January 28, 1986.

Leading the crew is Commander Francis Richard Scobee, followed by Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Michael Smith, Professor Christa McAuliffe and Ellison Onizuka. Engineer Gregory Jarvis was also on board.

However, just 73 seconds after its launch, the spacecraft exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven astronauts.

The millions who gathered to watch the launch, which included the crew’s families, watched in horror as the Challenger was engulfed in a ball of orange and white flames.

“The damn thing exploded,” was all a cameraman could say in utter disbelief.

The accident was later attributed to a faulty seal in one of the space shuttle’s rockets, which compromised the fuel tanks.

A distraught President Ronald Reagan canceled his annual State of the Union address and, in the Oval Office, told his nation: ‘The crew of the Challenger honored us by the way they lived their lives.

‘We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and escaped the harsh bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.’

Plane crash survivors resort to cannibalism

This photo was taken of passengers aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 moments before it crashed in the Andes

This photo was taken of passengers aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 moments before it crashed in the Andes.

The plane was transporting an amateur football team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, when it crashed.

Although 33 of the 45 passengers and crew survived the initial impact, this number was soon reduced to 16 as people succumbed to the elements.

And when the official search was called off after 10 days, the remaining passengers were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive.

The corpses were preserved by cold, allowing them to provide subsistence to survivors for up to 72 days.

Two of the survivors finally gained enough strength to seek help and the rest of the crash victims were rescued.

The events became known as ‘The Miracle of the Andes’ and inspired a documentary and the Hollywood film Alive, directed by Frank Marshall.

Hiker shoots bear, which kills him

A student who was killed by a bear while hiking in New Jersey in September 2014 took this photo of the beast before he was mauled to death

This is the photo a student took of a black bear moments before it mauled him to death.

Darsh Patel, 22, was hiking on the Apshawa Reservation in West Milford, New Jersey, when he was attacked in September 2014.

The image shows the bear approaching a fallen tree a few meters from the group.

“They stopped and took pictures of the bear with their cellphones and the bear began walking toward them,” a police report from the time said.

The friends then split up, but unfortunately for Patel the bear followed them.

Police found the beast standing over the 22-year-old’s body before shooting it dead.

Officers also recovered this photograph from his phone, which appeared to have been bitten by the bear.

14-year-old boy falls from plane

Sydney-born Keith Sapsford was just 14 when he crashed and died on a Japan Airlines flight in 1970.

This grainy photograph captures the moment a teenage stowaway fell to his death on a Japan Airlines flight.

Sydney-born Keith Sapsford was just 14 when he hid in the wheel well of a flight from Australia to Japan in 1970.

But the DC-8 plane’s compartment opened in the air and the boy plummeted 60 meters (200 feet) to the ground near Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport.

Amateur photographer John Gilpin captured the remarkable image while taking photos of planes during takeoff.

Gilpin had no idea he had tragically captured the young man’s last moments until he developed the photos a week later.

Keith managed to enter the runway and climb into the open landing gear of the Tokyo-bound plane, lodging in the same compartment where the steering wheel is after takeoff.

He remained there for several hours before departure.

Technicians believe the boy – who was wearing only shorts and a short-sleeved shirt – was unaware that the lock would reopen after takeoff to bring the steering wheel back in when he fell.

Hollywood legend James Dean

Actor James Dean fills up his Porsche 550 Spyder just hours before the accident that killed him

This photograph shows Hollywood actor James Dean filling up his Porsche hours before the accident that killed him.

The 24-year-old was traveling to a rally in Salinas, California, when he collided with a speeding car on September 30, 1955.

Dean’s passenger, Rolf Wütherich, a mechanic and pilot, was ejected from the Porsche 550 Spyder but survived the accident.

The actor, however, was trapped inside the car and suffered several fatal injuries, including a broken neck.

He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at hospital and an inquest placed the blame for the accident entirely on Dean.

Dean was a car enthusiast and nicknamed his Porsche 550 Spyder ‘Little Bastard’.

His acting career lasted just five years, but he was widely considered the next big thing in Hollywood.

He was known for his charisma and sex appeal, both on and off camera.

Lawyer jumps into ice hole

Pictured: The lawyer jumping into a frozen river to mark the Orthodox Christian Epiphany

This image shows the final moments before a lawyer was dragged to her death in front of her children by jumping into an ice hole in Russia.

Mother-of-two Anna Uskova, 40, dove headfirst into the Oredezh River to mark Orthodox Epiphany in January 2022.

Her two children screamed as she was pulled by a strong current.

The St. Petersburg lawyer was taking part in a tradition followed annually by hundreds of thousands of Russian faithful to mark the religious holiday.

People believe that the water blessed for the annual ceremony has special healing properties.

A hole was opened in the thick ice and the air temperature was around -5ºC when Anna jumped.

She was wearing a black swimsuit and was seen making the sign of the cross before covering her nose and jumping into the river.

Terror on the Concorde runway

All 109 people on board and four others on the ground died when the Concorde plane crashed in Gonesse, a suburb of Paris, on July 25, 2000.

This photograph was taken of Air France Flight 4590 moments before it crashed almost immediately after takeoff, killing everyone on board.

One hundred and nine passengers and crew and four others on the ground died when the Concorde plane crashed in Gonesse, a suburb of Paris, on July 25, 2000.

The plane took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport at 4:43 pm and was heading towards New York City.

However, while accelerating down the runway, a fire started just below the left wing, and by the time it left the ground, one of the two engines on the left side had failed.

The pilot only managed to climb 200 feet into the air before the other left engine shut down and the plane fell out of the sky.

The Air France flight hit a small hotel and restaurant in the suburb of Gonesse.

An investigation found that the Concorde hit a metal strip on the runway during takeoff, causing a tire to burst.

A piece of rubber hit the fuel tank, which caused the fire and engine failure.

The horrific accident is believed to have hastened the end of use of Concorde aircraft in 2003.