More than 100 meteorites, including one that weighed a record 1.9 tons, fell over 300 square miles of northeast China last month in one of the biggest meteorite showers in history.

The official news agency (NCNA) said although the area embraced six communes with a combined population of more than 100,000, the shower caused no loss of life or serious damage.

The shower occurred in the afternoon of March 8 when a large meteor - or "shooting star" - entered the earth's atmosphere moving at about 7.5 miles per second. It began to burn as a result of the intense friction and was observed as a large fireball over Kirin (Jilin) City in northeastern Kirin (Jilin) Province.

NCNA said the meteor "exploded in the sky over the Chinchu People's Commune on the outskirts of Kirin (Jilin) City and scattered radially in all directions."

"Judging by the meteorites already recovered, the shower covered an area of more than 500 square kilometers (310 square miles)," the report said.

NCNA said a survey team dispatched to the site by the Chinese Academy of Sciences collected hundreds of meteorites ranging in size from one pound to 3,894 pounds, the largest ever discovered.

The report said the last of the meteorites stabbed through nearly two yards of frozen soil, sank seven yards into the ground and formed a crater three yards deep and more than two yards in diameter.

(From: Valley Morning Star, Texas USA, April 22, 1976)

A U.S. Geological Survey scientist, Jeffrey C. Wynn, was invited to join expeditions to the Empty Quarter site. Even with modern technology, the trip was a difficult one. Not only were conditions harsh, reaching 61°C (142°F) in May 1994, but the Wabar site was difficult to find, as it is located in the midst of an enormous dune field that has no fixed landmarks.

The Wabar site covers about 500 by 1,000 meters, and the most recent mapping shows three prominent, roughly circular craters. Two, reported by Philby, showed a diameter of 116 and 64 meters. The third was discovered by Wynn and is 11 meters wide. All three are now nearly full of sand.

Mayo Belwa is an enstatite rich achondrite with a number of unusual features, in particular the abundance of vesicles and highly shocked olivines, which are rarely seen in other enstatite achondrites.

The German text below mentions: „Many pieces fell on a village or around six villages, but none fell on a house. 

In „Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, Volume 99 (1969) we find the following description (according to a text by E. Howard [1802]): 

„The largest stone of this shower, weighing 2 lbs., fell through the roof of a house at Krakhut (...), 14 miles from Benares, after the apperance of a luminous meteor, with detonations. The total recovered weight of the shower was 2,416 grams.“

Aussagen von Hindoos über den Steinregen bei Benares den 20. December 1799. Bericht von Cauzy Syud Hussein Ally: 

"In der Nacht erschien am Westhimmel ein grosses Meteor, das ein lebhaftes Licht verbreitete, und indem es in der Luft zerbrach, sich in mehrere Stücke zertheilte. Es liessen sich anfänglich drei Schüsse, wie Kanonenschüsse, hören, dann folgten mehrere, die einem Musketenfeuer glichen. Man bemerkte damals nicht, dass etwas vom Himmel gefallen sey; aber als am anderen Morgen die Dorfbewohner ihr Vieh auf die Weide trieben und auf die Felder gingen, fanden sie Steine, welche herabgefallen waren. Sie hatten 3 bis 8 Winkel, und wogen 4 Unzen bis 10 Pfund, und waren auf die Felder und das Dorf, aber keiner auf ein Haus gefallen. Jeder, der welche fand, nahm sie mit fort. Sie fielen um 6 Dörfer, in einer Länge von 2 englischen Meilen. Ihre Farbe war schwarz, und sie rochen nach Schiesspulver. Auf ihrem Bruch glichen sie glänzendem und zerriebenen Sande.

Sechs andere Zeugen, die alle Steine gefunden, oder erhalten hatten, bestätigen diesen Bericht durch ihre gerichtliche Aussagen, welche ebenfalls abgedruckt sind, doch weiter nichts merkwürdiges enthalten. Man wusste da, wo das Protokoll aufgenommen wurde, nur von etwa zehn Steinen, welche bekannte Personen aufgelesen und mit fortgenommen hatten."

To see more historic Indian Meteorites from the PMMC, please click on the Link below!

Abich, who had taken up his residence in Vienna, placed the stone in the hands of Professors Tschermak and Ludwig for examination, and the result of their investigations, together with a detailed report of the circumstances attending its descent, have been incorporated in the paper by Professor Tschermak, referred to in the note.

It is stated in the report drawn up by General-Major Kundukof, military commandant of the Tschetschensk district, that on the night of the 15th-16th June, a barely dark one, there was neither thunder, wind, nor rain. On Friday, the 16th, in the morning was clear and bright; light rain-clouds, which however brought no rain, hung on the western horizon over the station Mekenskoi, the inhabitants of which were startled at about seven o‘clock by a deafening sound, which continued a long space of time. 

A non-commissioned officer of the Mosdok regiment, who was walking from the Navursky of the Mekenskoi barracks, noticed that the sound appeared to come from the west, where the rain-clouds were, and describes it as resembling that produced when many cannon are fired simultaneously, followed by a deafening noise like that caused by battalion-firing. He observed the flight of one of the stones, which descended at a low angle, and it was accompanied by lateral bands of a bluish colour (...). The stone fell in the court-yard of a house about two paces distant from a summer-house, and thirty paces from the bank of the Terek. A soldier‘s wife, standing on the threshold of the house, drew back in the greatest alarm as the meteorite struck the ground two paces from her with all the violence of a bomb-shell, scattering the earth over the wall of the house. A soldier soon probled the hole with a ramrod, and found at a depth of rather more than a foot fragments of the stone weighing in all ten pounds. Many heard a second sound, as though the meteorite burst twice in its descent through the atmosphere, and the noise attending the fall was observed by persons eight versts (Russian unit of length, equal to 3500 feet or 1.066 kilometers) distant on the other side of the Terek. A woman who was occupied in washing clothes, at a spot about 1050 feet distant from the point where the meteorite struck the ground, heard fragments, which had been detached by the explosion, fall into the river Terek. The water fizzed just as it does when brought in contact with large quantity of heated iron.

The more recent history of Grozny is rather sad:

- During the First Chechen War, Grozny was the site of an intense battle lasting from December 1994 to February 1995 and ultimately ending with the capture of the city by the Russian military.

- Grozny was once again the epicenter of fighting after the outbreak of the Second Chechen War, which further caused thousands of fatalities. During the early phase of the Russian siege on Grozny in October 25, 1999.

- Today, the federal government representatives of Chechnya are based in Grozny. Even though the war is officially over, political murders, bombings and clashes between the Russian forces and the separatists continue but are becoming increasingly sporadic.

From: Académie des Sciences, Séance du lundi 25 Novembre 1925 (quotations; see also picture below):

"One intact stone of about 18 kg had been found. Only on two sides a small piece had been detached, so the main mass weighted 17.4 kg. The meteorite fall frightened the local inhabitants and they first refused to transport the meteorite to Ouagadougou. The meteorite was finally donated to the Natural History Museum (in Paris) in the name of the colony Upper Volta." 

- On February 8, 1969, the Allende meteorite fell at 1:05am in Pueblito de Allende, Chihuahua State, Mexico. It is a rare carbonaceous chondrite CV3. 

- On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon. 

- On September 28, 1969, the Murchison meteorite fall occurred over Murchison, Australia. Classified as a carbonaceous chondrite CM2, this meteorite is of possible cometary origin. More than 92 different amino acids have been identified within the Murchison meteorite to date, only nineteen of these are found on Earth...

But that‘s not all!

- On  April 25, 1969, at 9:22pm a fireball was observed travelling southeast to northwest over the British Isles alighting in Northern Ireland where one stone of 513 grams fell through a roof in Sprucefield, County Antrim, and broke in two. A second stone fell 60km away on a farm in Bovedy, it weighs 4.95 kilos.

The fireball was described by numerous observers as blue-green  to fiery-white in colour with a brightness at least equal to the full moon. The bigger mass gave the meteorite its name: BOVEDY. It is a rather rare unequilibrated L3 chondrite showing stunning chondrules. 

In addition, a lady was outdoors with her tape machine recording bird songs (of a song thrush [Turdus philomelos]) when the meteorite passed over and she caught the sounds of the detonations. The booms and rumblings echo around for several seconds after the first detonation, and a frightened dog starts to bark soon after. 

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only documented case where audible sounds were recorded during a meteor entry. The ground area where the tape recording was made was some 30 km away from an area where meteorites were subsequently recovered. To listen to this unique document, please click here: