Tunguska: One Blast. 80 Million Trees. No Crater.Episode 31:31
The Fire Brighter Than the Sun
The blast announces its scale through burned skin, broken windows, distant instruments and a towering column of smoke.
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Transcript
A witness saw a flash brighter than the Sun, then thunder hit the Siberian morning.
June 30th, 1908, about 7:15 a.m. over Siberia.
Closest witnesses were thrown up, knocked unconscious. Nearby homes were damaged or destroyed.
At Vanavara, a trading-post witness watched fire cover the northern sky. The sky split in two.
At about 40 miles, or 60 kilometers, witnesses fell; windows broke, crockery fell from shelves.
Exposed-skin burns reached 30 miles, or 50 kilometers, from the impact.
Farther away, the shock wave shattered windows across distant Siberian settlements.
Distant observers saw a towering column of smoke rising high above the horizon.
Seismic instruments hundreds of miles away recorded tremors from the shock wave.
Infrasound reached recording stations across Russian Siberia and Europe.
Models converge: 10 to 20 megatons. Airburst: about 6 miles, or 10 kilometers high.
Later surveys mapped a butterfly-shaped destruction zone covering 830 square miles.
Semyonov said he raised an axe to hoop a cask when the northern sky split apart.
In 1927, Kulik reached the site, found burned trees and no clear debris from explosion.
But near ground zero, branches were stripped while trunks remained standing.
Where it leaves off
But near ground zero, the blast had stripped trees bare while leaving their trunks standing.
Sources
- 115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Event - NASAnasa.govsecondary
- 1908 SIBERIA EXPLOSION: Reconstructing an Asteroid Impact from Eywitness Accounts - Planetary Science Institutepsi.edusecondary
- NASA/Technical Memorandum (NASA/TM--220174) 2018ntrs.nasa.govsecondary
- Vurdalak | Witness: S. B. Semyonovvurdalak.comprimary
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