The Tunguska event – An example of natures power

On June 30 of 1908 over a remote area of Russian wilderness, a huge explosion took place that flattened 2,000 km2 of forest, but somehow didn’t kill a single person. The explosion was equal to between 10 and 15 megatons of TNT, but the thing is no one knew about it until it happened.

(The center of the Tunguska event over 100 years later)

The event is named after a river it happened close to, the Podkamennaya Tunguska River located in what is now known as the Krasnoyarsk Krai region of Russia, a very remote area deep within the Siberian wilderness. The area was so remote that only a handful of people saw it happen from a distance, and the area itself was supposed to be completely void of human life as there were no official deaths recorded from the incident, though it has been claimed that up three people died in the event.

(A photo from 1908 of the blast damage)

The strange thing is that no one actually caused it, and the location of the explosion didn’t cause any kind of burn damage or leave a crater behind. At the time, Russia didn’t have nuclear capabilities and there was no evidence that they caused the explosion, a claim backed up by the lack of damage usually caused by an explosion of this size. Its estimated that over 80 million trees were flattened in the blast and over a million animals may have lost their lives, and all from a gigantic blast that no one set off.

So what caused the Tunguska event?

Any kind of man made device has been ruled out due to the lack of evidence, so the blame seems to fall squarely on nature. The most commonly agreed on theory is that an enormous air burst was caused by a meteor entering the atmosphere. It would have to be around 100 meters across in order to gain the necessary amount of power to push such a large area of air into the ground with such force, which is entirely possibly, but highly unlikely due to there not being a crater of any kind.

If a meteor of that size hit the atmosphere with enough speed, it would likely break into pieces so small they wouldn’t be heavy enough to cause impact damage in the form of a crater. The high speed would also be needed to “slap” the air hard enough to cause enough force to do the damage it did.

This is the most widely accepted and possible theory, but it doesn’t have every one convinced. Of course there are explanations from aliens to secret government testing, but because the area has long since healed itself and there wasn’t any evidence to begin with, the true answer to this mystery may never come to light.