Most residents of the two Russian capitals (Moscow and St. Petersburg) have never felt earthquakes at all. Therefore, to the question: "Could there be an earthquake in these cities?" - they are likely to answer in the negative. In terms of seismicity, the Russian plain is a rather calm territory. However, from time to time such a question nevertheless arises, and the Russian chronicles reflect some echoes of the underground storms that erupted on this plain. So, for example, the chroniclers noted the earthquake in Kiev in 1091: "… I will knock the earth, as if I hear".
In the Nikon Chronicle (XVI century) it is noted: “And in the same autumn of October on the 1st day, on which day the great prince was released from Kurmysh, at 6 o'clock in the night the city of Moscow, the Kremlin, the whole settlement and the temple were shaken, many people could not sleep and heard, in many sorrows and despairing belly."
And little Sasha Pushkin was a witness of another earthquake. The great Russian poet mentioned him in the sketches for his autobiography: “Yusupov Garden. Earthquake. Nanny". This event took place on October 14, 1802. Then the newspaper “Moskovskie vedomosti” reported: “The blows were sensitive in high buildings; chandeliers swayed in almost all houses, tables and chairs in others. Many people, in disbelief, imagined that they were dizzy. Those who walked along the street or were driving did not feel anything, and most of the residents only learned the next day that there was an earthquake in Moscow."
In our country, areas of tangible earthquakes stretch mainly along the southern and eastern borders. For example, in Kamchatka, in the center of the Klyuchevskoy group of giant volcanoes, there is a relatively small hill - 3085 meters. Due to her natural inexpressiveness, she did not receive her own name and appears everywhere under the name Nameless. This hill has always been considered an extinct volcano, so the eruption that began was completely unexpected. The awakening of the volcano was announced by tremors, which were registered by the volcanic station Klyuchi, located 45 kilometers from Bezymyannaya.
The eruption began in the early October morning of 1955. In the Keys, clouds of white smoke were first seen, then ash began to settle. For several days the sultan rose above the crater from volcanic emissions, which reached a height of eight kilometers. In the monstrous cloud at night huge lightnings were visible. The explosions, one stronger than the other, did not stop throughout November. On some days, the ash shroud was so thick that it did not let the sun's rays through. In the Klyuchi, during the day, lamps were lit in houses, and cars went with their headlights on. Within a month, the volcano's crater expanded from 250 to 800 meters.
At the end of November, Bezymyannaya's activity slightly decreased, then a dome of viscous lava began to grow in the crater. He closed the outlet to volcanic gases, but all this was only preparation for the main eruption that occurred on March 30, 1956. The pressure in the volcano reached such a force that during the explosion above Bezymyannaya, a pillar of fire rose into the sky, leaning to the east at an angle of 30 degrees. Black smoke and a cloud of ash billowed above it, which reached a height of 24 kilometers and in a few minutes closed the tops of the mountains.
In the next fifteen minutes, an even larger cloud was erupted to a height of 43 kilometers. With a giant fan, it rushed up and to the sides, and ash began to fall. Individual large particles of ash were up to three millimeters in size, and it seemed that heavy hail was hitting the window glass. The ashfall gradually intensified, and soon there was such impenetrable darkness that it was impossible to see an object brought to the very eyes.
At 24 kilometers from the crater, the trees were uprooted from the ground, and the surviving trunks immediately flared up from the high temperature. Fires occurred at a distance of up to thirty kilometers. A half-meter layer of volcanic sand lay within a radius of ten kilometers from the volcano, and all living and nonliving was buried under it. Jets of this sand tore off the bark from trees at a distance of thirty kilometers. In Ust-Kamchatsky (200 kilometers from the volcano), this cloud obscured the entire horizon. It seemed impenetrably black, only its light edges were bright golden in the rays of the setting sun.
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After the eruption, the form of the Nameless One completely changed. From a regular, slightly truncated cone, the volcano has turned into a semi-circular funnel. The summit was demolished by the explosion, and the height of the Bezymyannaya volcano decreased by almost two hundred meters. After the eruption, a dome of viscous lavas began to grow in the crater of the volcano, which after several years reached a height of several hundred meters.
Rapid melting of snows began under a huge thickness of hot sand falling from the sky. Powerful mud streams arose, which rushed through the valleys, carrying along with them fragments of rocks weighing hundreds of tons, destroying everything in their path.
The house-base of volcanologists was literally blown off the face of the earth, not a single board remained from it. Fortunately, there were no people in it at that time. Soviet volcanologist Professor G. S. Gorshkov argued that a catastrophe of this magnitude in a populated area would have claimed tens of thousands of human lives.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev