The Tunguska Explosion

On June 30, 1908, at about 7:14 AM local time, an asteroid or comet plummeted over the lower Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a remote area of Siberia, and detonated at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles.

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The History Channel

The Tunguska Explosion

"On June 30, 1908, at about 7:14 AM local time, an asteroid or comet plummeted over the lower Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a remote area of Siberia, and detonated at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles.

It exploded with the energy of the largest thermonuclear bomb the United States has ever tested, the Castle Bravo bomb, 10-15 megatons. This is one-third the power of the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba. The airburst toppled about 80 million trees over 772 square miles of Siberian taiga, and would have registered at 5.0 on the Richter Scale.

Thankfully, no one was killed, because the nearest eyewitnesses were about 40 miles away from ground zero. They reported seeing a bright blue column of light streak across the sky, almost as bright as the sun, then a flash, and a report like artillery fire right beside them.

For one hundred miles around the epicenter, people were blown off their feet by the shockwave, their clothes were scorched off, windows were shattered, and trees seared to death and blown over. Iron locks were snapped off barn doors.

This detonation was more than sufficient to incinerate the entire population of Japan, the Sao Paolo metropolitan area, the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, or the entire United States’s New England megalopolis from Boston to Washington, D. C."

A Visit to the Site

Discovery Channel Part 1

The Discovery Channel Part 2

Discovery Channel Part 3