maelstrom

noun

1 we headed south, with one eye on the maelstrom to starboard:

whirlpool, vortex, eddy, swirl;

literary Charybdis.

2 they were caught up in the maelstrom of war:

turbulence, tumult, turmoil, uproar, commotion, disorder, jumble, disarray, chaos, confusion, upheaval, seething mass, welter, pandemonium, bedlam, whirlwind, swirl.

maelstrom Oxford Dictionary of English