Reported Deaths and Injuries from Meteorite Impact

From Oberlin College, we read:

Meteorite Impact Structures Student Research:

• 1420 BC  Israel - Fatal meteorite impact.
• 588 AD China - 10 deaths; siege towers destroyed.
• 1321-68 China - People & animals killed; homes ruined.
• 1369  Ho-t'ao China - Soldier injured; fire.
• 02/03/1490 Shansi, China - 10,000 deaths.
• 09/14/1511 Cremona, Italy - Monk, birds, & sheep killed.
• 1633-64 Milono, Italy - Monk killed.
• 1639 China - Tens of deaths; 10 homes destroyed.
• 1647-54 Indian Ocean - 2 sailors killed aboard a ship.
• 07/24/1790 France - Farmer killed; home destroyed; cattle killed.
• 01/16/1825 Oriang, India - Man killed; woman injured.
• 02/27/1827 Mhow, India - Man injured.
• 12/11/1836 Macao, Brazil - Oxen killed; homes damaged.
• 07/14/1847 Braunau, Bohemia - Home struck by 371 lb meteorite.
• 01/23/1870 Nedagolla, India - Man stunned by meteorite.
• 06/30/1874 Ming Tung li, China - Cottage crushed, child killed.
• 01/14/1879 Newtown, Indiana, USA - Man killed in bed.
• 01/31/1879 Dun-Lepoelier, France - Farmer killed by meteorite.
• 11/19/1881 Grossliebenthal, Russia - Man injured.
• 03/11/1897 West Virginia, USA - Walls pierced, horse killed, man injured.
• 09/05/1907 Weng-li, China - Whole family crushed to death.
• 06/30/1908 Tunguska, Siberia - Fire, 2 people killed. (referenced throughout paper)
• 04/28/1927 Aba, Japan - Girl injured by meteorite.
• 12/08/1929 Zvezvan, Yugoslavia - Meteorite hit bridal party, 1 killed.
• 05/16/1946 Santa Ana, Mexico - Houses destroyed, 28 injured.
• 11/30/1946 Colford, UK - Telephones knocked out, boy injured.
• 11/28/1954 Sylacauga, Alabama, USA - 4 kg meteorite struck home, lady injured.
• 08/14/1992 Mbole, Uganda - 48 stones fell, roofs damaged, boy injured.

Meteorite Impact Structures Student Research: The most incredible Chinese report is that of the Chíing-yang Meteorite Shower of 1490.  Supposedly, tens of thousands of people were killed during the shower in the Shansi province.  Yau et al. tell us that "[t]he Chíing-yang incident seems rather implausible in terms of the total number of casualties and the narrow size distribution of the meteorite fragments (Yau et al. 1994)," but they also point out its similarities to the Tunguska event, which would have devastated a populated area.

Yau, K., P. Weissman, and D. Yeomans. "Meteorite Falls in China and Some Related Human Casualty Events." Meteoritics 29, 864-871. [Geobase]

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Impact event - Wikipedia: Near misses and forecasts:

• On 19 May 1996 a 300–500 m asteroid, 1996 JA1, passed within 450,000 km of Earth; it had been detected a few days before.
• On 18 March 2004 a 30 m asteroid, 2004 FH, passed within 40,000 km of Earth only a few days after it had been detected. This asteroid probably would have detonated in the atmosphere and posed negligible hazard to the surface, had it been on impact course.
• On 31 March 2004, a 6 m meteoroid, 2004 FU162 made the second closest near miss pass ever observed (closest so far was The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball) with a separation of only 1.02 Earth radii from the surface (6,500 km). Because this object is certainly too small to pass through the atmosphere, it is classed as a meteoroid rather than an asteroid.
• In 2004, a newly discovered 320 m asteroid, 99942 Apophis (previously called 2004 MN4), achieved the highest impact probability of any potentially dangerous object. The probability of collision on 13 April 2029 is estimated to be as high as 1 in 17 by Steve Chesley of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, though the previously published figure was the slightly lower odds of 1 in 37, calculated in December 2004. Later observations showed that the asteroid will miss the earth by 25,600 km (within the orbits of communications satellites) in 2029, but its orbit will be altered unpredictably in a way which does not rule out a collision on 13 or 14 April 2036 or later in the century. These possible future dates have a cumulative probability of 1 in 45,000 for an impact in the 21st century.
• Asteroid 2004 VD17, of 580 m, previously was estimated to have a probability of 1 in 63,000 of striking earth on 4 May 2102 (as of July 2006), with risk 1 on the Torino scale, but further observations lowered the estimate. As of the observation on December 17, 2006, JPL assigns 2004 VD17 a Torino value of 0 and an impact probability of 1 in 41.667 million in the next 100 years.
• Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA has a potential to collide with Earth on March 16, 2880. The probability of impact is either 1 in 300 or zero, depending on which one of the two possible directions for the asteroid's spin pole is correct. This asteroid has a mean diameter of about 1.1 km. The energy released by the collision would cause major effects on the climate and biosphere and may be devastating to human civilization. The Atlantic Ocean is predicted to be facing towards the asteroid on the day of the potential collision.
• Asteroid 2007 TU24 with an estimated diameter between 300-500-m came very close to earth orbit by 1.4 ld(lunar distance) on January 29, 2008. The orbit of the asteroid is shown on NASA's website [6].
• Relatively small objects that burn up in the atmosphere can be dangerous beyond their own capabilities. In 2002, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden told members of a U.S. House of Representatives Science subcommittee that the U.S. has instruments that determine if an atmospheric explosion is natural or man-made, but no other nation with nuclear weapons has that detection technology. He said there is concern that some of those countries could mistake a natural explosion for an attack, and launch nuclear retaliation. In the summer of 2001 U.S. satellites had detected over the Mediterranean an atmospheric flash of energy similar to a nuclear weapon, but determined that it was caused by an asteroid.
• As of March 2008, the Near-Earth Asteroid with the highest probability of impact within the next 100 years is 2007 VK184, with a Torino scale of 1.

Comments

[allan_in_upstate]

But we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of Tunguska in a few days,
so Easterbrook must be on to something.

Seriously, though, what is the probability that is Easterbrook a foreign mole,
succeeding in getting U.S. academics to waste
their precious research in time smacking him down?

[Qfwfq]

I could tell Easterbrook a thing or two about meteorite impacts...

[Joe S.]

Looking at the list, one conclusion is obvious. You are far safer from getting hurt by a meteorite--maybe a factor of 10 or 100--if you stay indoors.

Good. I always preferred foul air and darkness.

[Patrick Burke]

One of the more fascinating posts I've ever read. Robert Frost appearing rather prescient, if the next Ice Age doesn't get us, a rocky fire ball surely will, just ask our T-Rex friend "Sue".

[rea]

"Looking at the list, one conclusion is obvious. You are far safer from getting hurt by a meteorite--maybe a factor of 10 or 100--if you stay indoors."

If you look at the list closely, you will see that not a single casualty has been reported to have occured to anyone who took shelter under an umbrella.

Note also that there have been no casualties from meteorites in the US since we attacked Iraq. We're fighting them over there so we don't have to over here!

[Jane]

Monks and sailors are the likeliest professions to be killed by asteroids?

[eugene magnier]

A nice compilation. A few things stand out to me: there are more reported incidents (both with and without deaths) per century now and even in the 19th century than 300 years ago. Better reporting, more people, or both? there are a lot of events reported in China (7 of 28), while China covers only 7% of the earth's land (not surface) area. This could also be either of the effects above (more people, better reporting). The large number from India and the USA can also be attributed to the same combination. That makes you realize that events on this scale must be much more common that this list implies:

Most of these events (Tunguska and maybe Shansi excluded) are probably due to small (maybe ~25m; definitely < 50m) sized rocks, those on the edge of reaching the surface of the earth. The composition is important in how they impact the ground. Rocky asteroids will be more likely to break up and shatter as they travel through the atmosphere, probably reducing the total damage but spreading it out; Metallic ones will mostly stay intact and make a single, but bigger hole (think Berringer Crater). It looks like the modelers claim Tunguska was due to a ~60m rocky object (there is lots of debate about the composition; less about the size). That is actually scary: the Tunguska event would have destroyed a city if it had hit one; yet rocks that size are actually well below the limit of even the planned searches. Congress wants us to find them only down to 140m. That is ~10 times the energy of Tunguska.

[christofay]

Did a meteor kill Fed independence?

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/06/has-fed-compromised-its-independence.html

Probably a bigger subject for death spiral watch, "Federal Reserve independence and good policy death spiral watch."

[Ken Houghton]

Well, if you're Greggggggg, you add all those probabilities together, set your calculator/computer to round to one decimal place, start adding without knowing exactly how to divide, and might end up seeing 0.1 at the end. Especially if you're multiplying by 10 at the end, the way eugene magnier suggested.

[frank]

impact rates based on the cratering record are pretty much in line with estimates based on the population of Earth-crossing asteroids. Size distributions roughly fit an inverse square law distribution (i.e., 2 x diameter = 1/4 probability; 1/2 diameter = 4 x probability). Using this one can calculate impact rates based on a probability of a 500 m impactor every 100,000 years. So on average, 50 m projectiles should impact every 10,000 years or so (10 x 10 times more frequent). Once you get down to about 50 m the probability of the projectile exploding in the atmosphere (like Tungusaka) is quite high. Much smaller events might be like nuclear explosions, but they are rare and very unlikely to hit populated areas.

More to the point of the Easterbrook article, I've searched the Web of Science publication database for papers by the chief protagonist in his article. DH Abbot has not published a significant paper in 5 years and has never published anything other than unreviewed abstracts on this subject that I can find. Looks like a squeeky wheel getting Easterbrook's attention, but no follow-up to credible experts in this field.

[Then there is the cross-section problem: we have what? 6000 cities each of roughly 100 square miles = 600,000 square miles of devastating impact cross section in a world of 200M square miles. Means only 1 out of 400 50M impacts will be "devastating." If we say that a 50 meter meteorite--2 megatons, Barringer crater-sized--hitting a city is our threshold for "devastating," we are down to one every 4,000,000 years--not the one every thousand years of the *Atlantic Monthly.*

[Alex]

1647-54 Indian Ocean - 2 sailors killed aboard a ship.

Now *that's* what I call bad luck. Not only did it find that particular chunk of the sea, but it arrived at just the right moment to hit a moving target.

[Knee-jerk, Cherry-picking Cynic]

Qfwfq wins this thread. More Calvino, less Easterbrook!

[Neal]

From null-hypothesis.co.uk

(quote)

Meteorophobia: the fear of meteorsBy Hayley Birch

What's so scary about them?
Er, big ball of rock and flame travelling at twenty six miles per second. Yep, got it.

What do the scientists say about it?
Nothing. Silence. Which is absolutely appalling for something so terrifying. I don't care what anyone says. Surely if it's rational to be scared of clowns, it's perfectly rational to be scared of a ruddy great ball of fire hurtling towards our tiny, fragile planet.

There seems to be a blatant disregard for people with this very legitimate fear and a lack of treatment options. So, if you’re in need of counselling for your meteorophobia, I suggest you take note of the following, which I have adapted from Cambridge University’s arachnophobia coping hierarchy.

1. Reading about meteors.
2. Looking at and then touching a photograph of a meteor.
3. Looking at/touching a plastic model of a meteor.
4. Looking at/touching a jar with a small meteor in (could be tricky).
5. Picking the meteor out of the jar.
6. Picking up a large meteor (perhaps over ambitious).

Meteorophobia: True or false?
The scientists might be overlooking it for the moment, but you wait until we're all about to die thanks to an impending meteor strike. It'll be global meteorophobia. True.

(end quote)