GLASSES OF THE TUBE-KARAGAN LIGHTHOUSE (Science and Life)

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

Cape Tyub-Karagan on the Mangyshlak Peninsula drops off to the sea with a steep hundred-meter ledge. On the flat top of the ledge stands the white building of the Tyub-Karagan lighthouse - a square courtyard surrounded by a white fence, a keeper's house and the lighthouse tower itself. Bare ground strewn with rubble and pebbles. If you climb onto the balcony that goes around the lighthouse lantern, you will notice an interesting detail: the thick glass of the lighthouse is broken in two places. In the center there is a small depression, and from it, cracks spread out in all directions, like a spider's web. It was as if someone had thrown a stone here with fury. However, what hand could do this? The lantern of the Tyub-Karagan lighthouse rises 15 m above the ground (the height of a four-story building), and it is impossible to throw a stone here with such force that it would break glass 5 cm thick.

And yet the glass is broken by stones. A few years ago, a wind of exceptional strength even for these places rushed through here. He rushed with a deafening roar, howled, roared, and tore the ground with incredible force. Sand and dust flew in such a thick mass that nothing was visible even ten steps away. The walls of the lighthouse trembled under the terrible blows of the whirlwind, plaster crumbled, and stones whizzed high in the air in the darkness like bullets. It was impossible to leave the house. When the storm ended, the old caretaker saw that the glass of the lighthouse lantern was broken, and found three stones the size of a walnut on the balcony.

For more details, see: http://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/10524/?sphrase_id=22932 (Science and life, WHAT “SCIENCE AND LIFE” WRITTEN ABOUT 50 AND 100 YEARS AGO. APRIL 1998 No. 4)