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    Haroun Tazieff

    1914-05-11 (110 years old) in Warsaw, Poland

    Haroun Tazieff (Warsaw, 11 May 1914 – Paris, 2 February 1998) was a Tatar, Belgian and French volcanologist and geologist. He was a famous cinematographer of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, and the author of several books on volcanoes. He was also a government adviser and French cabinet minister. He also served in the Belgian resistance during world war 2. His parents met and married in 1906 while they were both students in Brussels. They later returned to Warsaw, Russian Partition, where their first son, Salvator, died at two months and where Haroun was born. His father, Sabir, was a Muslim medical doctor, of Tatar descent and his mother, Zenita Iliyasovna Klupta, was a Tatar[dubious – discuss] chemist and doctor of natural science and holder of a bachelor's degree in political science. His father was conscripted into the Russian Army and died during the First world war, a fact that did not reach the family until 1919. In 1917 Haroun emigrated to Brussels with his widowed mother. Haroun received a degree in agronomy in Gembloux in 1938, and another degree in geology at the University of Liège in 1944. He was later a Secretary of state in France, in charge of protection against major risks. Haroun Tazieff participated in the first detailed exploration of the "Saint-Martin" La Verna cave system in the French Pyrenees. In 1952, while he was filming Marcel Loubens' ascent of the Pierre-Saint-Martin rock face, the cable of the hoist broke and Loubens fell over 80 meters. Loubens died 36 hours later but his body could only be recovered from the cave in 1954. He became famous in France after publishing a book entitled, "Le Gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Martin" in 1952. He directed the documentary movie Le volcan interdit (1966) about the Nyiragongo Mountain in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which he was the first to climb in 1948. The National Geographic film, The Violent Earth, was based on Tazieff's expeditions to the volcanoes Mount Etna on Sicily in 1971 and Mount Nyiragongo in 1972. In these expeditions he attempted, unsuccessfully, to descend into the active lava lake in order to collect samples — something he had managed to achieve on a previous expedition in 1959. Tazieff died in 1998 and was buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris. Source: Article "Haroun Tazieff" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

    Movies

    poster
    Haroun Tazieff: The Poet of Fire
    0 %|Feb 1, 2019
    Documentary
    poster
    The World of Gaston Rébuffat
    100 %|Jan 1, 2009
    Documentary, Adventure
    poster
    Against Oblivion
    65 %|Dec 11, 1991
    Documentary
    actor
    Afar, Continental Drift
    0 %|Jan 1, 1977
    Documentary
    actor
    L'Erta Ale
    0 %|Jan 1, 1973
    Documentary
    actor
    The Forbidden Volcano
    0 %|Jan 1, 1966
    Documentary
    poster
    Entre Terre et Ciel
    100 %|Jan 1, 1961
    Documentary, Adventure
    poster
    The Devil's Blast
    73 %|Jan 30, 1959
    Documentary

    Series

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    Stars 90
    62 %|Sep 3, 1990
    Reality
    poster
    Champs-Elysées
    62 %|Jan 16, 1982
    Talk
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    Midi Première
    100 %|Jan 6, 1975
    Reality
    poster
    Le Grand Échiquier
    80 %|Jan 12, 1972
    Reality