As the inhabitants of an ancient West Asian city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, t...
As the inhabitants of an ancient West Asian city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 61,000 km/hour.
Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about 4 km above the ground. The blast was around 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The shocked city dwellers who stared at it were blinded instantly. Air temperatures rapidly rose above 2,000 degrees Celsius. Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire.
Some seconds later, a massive shockwave smashed into the city. Moving at about 1,200 km/hour, it was more powerful than the worst tornado ever recorded. The deadly winds ripped through the city, demolishing every building. They sheared off the top 12 metres of the 4-story palace and blew the jumbled debris into the next valley. None of the 8,000 people or any animals within the city survived – their bodies were torn apart and their bones blasted into small fragments.
About a minute later, 22 km to the west of Tall el-Hammam, winds from the...
