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behind it. Other local inhabitants stated they had noticed a rainbow appearing trail of iridescent bands right behind it. What was lacking, if it were a meteorite that landed, was a smoky trail of large iron meteorites. Yet it was an extremely powerful hit-trees were stripped and felled to a radius of 40 km; huge numbers of reindeer burned to death; and the tents of nearby nomads were thrown into the air.

According to I.M. Suslov's account in N.V. Vasilyev's article "The Tunguska Event", one of the eyewitness to the event was one of the settlement residents nearby, an elderly half-caste shaman man from Evenk who was 40 km south of the epicenter who called the object which landed a "devil":

"As I came to myself, he told Konenkin, I saw it was all falling around me, burning. You don't think, Viktor Grigoryevich [V.G.Konenkin], that was god flying, it was really devil flying. I lift up my head - and see - devil's flying. The devil itself was like a billet, light color, two eyes in front, fire behind. I was frightened, covered myself with some duds, prayed (not to the heathen god, I prayed to Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary). After some time of prayer I recovered: everything was clear. I went back to the mouth of the Yakukta where the nomad camp was. It was in the afternoon that I came there..." ( by Academician N.V. Vasilyev; http://www.bibliotecapleyades. net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_tungus ka07.htm)

Another eye-witness was S.B. Semenov, located in the village of Vanovara south of the explosion:

"I was sitting in the porch of the house at the trading station of Vanovara at breakfast time ... when suddenly in the north ... the sky was split in two and high above the forest the whole northern part of the sky appeared to be covered with fire. At that moment I felt great heat as if my shirt had caught fire; this heat came from the north side. I wanted to pull off my shirt and throw it away, but at that moment there was a bang in the sky, and a mighty crash was heard. I was thrown to the ground about three sajenes [about 7 meters] away from the porch and for a moment I lost consciousness... The crash was followed by noise like stones falling from the sky, or guns firing. The earth trembled, and when I lay on the ground I covered my head because I was afraid that stones might hit it." (http://www.psi.edu/projects/s iberia/siberia.html)

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