On June 30, 1908, eyewitness S. B. Semenov was sitting on the porch of the Vanavara trading station, about 40 miles from the Tunguska epicenter. He felt scorching heat as if his shirt had caught fire, was thrown about 20 feet (three sagenas), and lost consciousness. His daughter said the sky in the north opened to the ground with fire pouring out. The account of the sky splitting in two came from Evenki herder Chuchan, not Semanov; other nearby herders reported tents being torn away, and one man was left deaf for years.
Eyewitness Semenov thrown 20 feet by Tunguska blast in Vanavara
Key facts
- On June 30, 1908, S. B. Semenov was sitting on the porch of the Vanavara trading station, about 40 miles from the Tunguska epicenter.
- He felt intense heat as if his shirt had caught fire, was thrown about 20 feet (roughly three sagenas), and lost consciousness.
- His daughter said the sky in the north opened to the ground with fire pouring out.
- The account of the sky splitting in two came from Evenki herder Chuchan, not Semanov. Other nearby herders reported tents being torn away, and one man was left deaf for years.
Sources
New data on accounts of the 1908 Tunguska event - Ol'khovatovonlinelibrary.wiley.com
Since 1908, many eyewitness accounts of the June 30, 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, Russia, have been collected (Vasil'ev, Kovalevskij, Razin, ...
Tunguska event - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
The Tunguska event was a large explosion of between 3–50 megatons TNT equivalent that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate ...
THE TUNGUSKA EXPLOSION OF 1908icr.org
The Tunguska explosion occurred on the morning of June 30, 1908 at 7:17 AM local time (0h 17m 11s UT) in the area of the Stony Tunguska River.
First-Hand Eyewitness Accounts May Shed New Light On ... - Forbesforbes.com
The Tunguska Event of June 1908 was the largest cosmic impact witnessed by modern humans.
Tunguska Event: Eyewitness accounts from the last time a heavenly ...slate.com
S.B. Semenov, a peasant who had been living about forty miles from the site of impact, wrote Kulik a letter to report his experience: It was ...
Tunguska Eventarmagh.space
Eyewitness Testimony. Early in the morning – a little after 7am local time – in the plains of central Siberia populated only by a handful of natives and some ...
115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Eventnasa.gov
Local eyewitnesses in the sparsely populated region reported seeing a fireball and hearing a large explosion. They also reported massive forest ...
June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Eventaps.org
A farmer named Sergei Semenov was one of the few eyewitnesses to the entire event while having breakfast just 40 miles from the epicenter.
Was this story useful?
Keep exploring
Every site on this page sits on the globe, and the people who research them are on the Discord.
3D Globe · Sites by country · Story Archive · Research Library · Weekly Journal · Search
AI-generated text · images from the original sources · always verify with the sources.