A Blast over Siberia Flattens 80 Million Trees

On the morning of 30 June 1908, a brilliant celestial object traversed the cloudless sky over Central Siberia, travelling northwest from the southeast. Eyewitnesses across an arc of hundreds of kilometres observed a trail of white smoke and an intense fiery brilliance that briefly rivalled the sun. Shortly after 7 a.m. local time, the descending body disintegrated in the atmosphere above the remote taiga near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, unleashing a massive detonation. The concussive air burst ignited sporadic forest fires, shattered windows across a wide area, and knocked people and domestic animals off their feet.

The physical devastation centered on a sparsely settled region of the Yeniseysk Governorate inhabited primarily by nomadic Evenk reindeer herders and hunters. At least thirty people were inside or near the area of flattened forest, and many of them lost consciousness. A 2019 review of the eyewitness accounts concluded that at least three people died, immediately or later, as a direct result of the blast. The shock wave generated seismic tremors registered by stations in Irkutsk, Tashkent, Tiflis, and Jena, while barographs as far away as England recorded the passing pressure wave.