[meteorite-list] NP Article, 08-1913 Aerolite Wrecks Village

[MARK BOSTICK]

Title: Indianapolis Star
City: Indianapolis, Indiana
Date: Sunday, August 31, 1913


AEROLITE WRECKS VILLAGE
Ball of Fire Drops From Sky, Destroying Countryside
MADRID, Aug. 30. - The village of Alcocer, near Valencia, has bven 
practically destroyed and the surrounding country ravaged by an aerolite
of great size.  Shortly after noon there dropped from the a cloudless 
sky a great lurid ball of fire.  a deafening serios of detonations, like 
a thousand rifle shorts, resounded through the still atmosphere and 
scattering tongues of flames leaped in all directions as the heavy mass 
buried itself in the earth.  The surrounding coutry was set on fire, and 
within an hour nothing but blackened masses of smoldering cinders 
ramined of farmhouses, hay lofts, trees and gathered crops of hay, wheat 
and olives.  The whole population of Alcocer was at the moment attending 
a requiem service in the church, some two miles distant.  But for that 
circumstance the loss of life would have been terrible.  As it was, five 
persons were seriously burned, one of them succumbing to the injuries.  
At the moment the aerolite fell a rain of stones, some the size of 
oranges and weighing nearly two pounds, burst over the neighboring 
villages of Benavites and Cuarill.  The ground was covered in placed to 
a depth of five inches by these stones.  A pungent odor of sulphur 
pervaded the locality for hours after the phenomenon.


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