An overhead view of Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. (NIAGARA FALLS TOURISM) The first death came in July, from a ferocious grizzly bear in Yellowstone. A few weeks later, a waterfall in Yosemite was the death scene. Last week, the culprit was a hungry polar bear at a campsite in Norway.In the latest bizarre national park death this summer, a Japanese student was swept to her presumed death at Niagara Falls after she fell from a railing Sunday night along the Canadian side of the Niagara River.
According to surveillance footage and eyewitnesses, the student climbed onto the railing near a viewing area known as Table Rock to take pictures at around 8:30 p.m., and lost her footing when she stood up. The woman fell into the river 80 feet upstream from the brink of the falls and was swept over.
Officials are still looking for her body.
Web site The Stir pointed out that this death could make 2011 the deadliest summer on record. It adds to the list glacier, fallen tree, and lightning accidents. The deadliest summer could lead to the most disastrous century, as the Post’s Joel Achenbach predicted in Slate:
“In the same way that the 20th century was the century of world wars, genocide, and grinding ideological conflict, the 21st will be the century of natural disasters and technological crises and unholy combinations of the two. It'll be the century when the things that we count on to go right will, for whatever reason, go wrong.”
If he’s right, this summer’s national park disasters are only the beginning.