over the water filming the catastrophe.
Right here, make it "parallel" with the previous part of the sentence:
over the water and filmed the catastrophe.
Excellent, ominous writing... the rhythm is sort of steady and droning.
(I don't know if droning means what I am tryng to use it to mean.)
Do not use too many adjectives, or they lose their meaning. I don't like "pretentious" here, because it means something specific that does not seem to apply to the story. And... monstrous is probably a little too much, too... monstrous massacre is an example of one adjective too many.
Anyway, you are a great writer! For you, I definitely recommend Stephen King's book called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.