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How 15 minutes have written beforenine dead, unusual behavior and unexplained injuries), 1959 The Diatlov Pass incident of February 1 and 2 is still shrouded in mystery and shrouded in various conspiracy theories.
The circumstances of the disaster in the Urals seemed extremely mysterious for many years. The hikers led by Igor Diatlov slept in their tents, but at night they escaped even destroying them, without shoes or warm clothes.
In the morning they were all dead. The outcome of the expedition was tragic, but at first it didn’t seem mysterious. Only when all the hikers had autopsies were strange things cleared up – skull and chest fractures were found.
A combination of factors
Doctors compared the force required to cause such fractures to a collision with a car. It seemed as if people were under very high pressure.
The bodies of some hikers were strange colors, some people were already without eyes. One man was essentially radioactive, the other woman had no tongue.
Photo from dyatlovpass.com / One of the last photos taken by hikers
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a wide variety of conspiracy theories have flickered for many decades: Have secret missiles been tested there? Nuclear weapon? Perhaps the protesters were condemned by the aliens? Or maybe the students were simultaneously struck by a mysterious psychological syndrome and killed each other?
Last year, Russian investigators officially announced that protesters had been killed by an avalanche of snow; that on one fateful night the students suddenly fell out of their tents, but got lost and froze. The members of the expedition ran into the forest, which was downhill, just over a kilometer away.
A study now published in Communications Earth and Environment gives more weight to such a theory.
The researchers write that the avalanche of snow that brought the students to 25 degrees cold was caused by a “combination of factors”: destabilized snow during the construction of the tent, as well as a strong icy wind that carried that snow to a thick layer above hikers.
“Of course, certain parts of the mystery of the Diatlov crossing will never be explained, because no one survived,” said Johan Gaume, director of the Lausanne Polytechnic Institute at the Lausanne Polytechnic Institute.
Photo from the archives of the Soviet Union / The last photo taken by the hikers camera
But the scientist, only after learning about the mysterious history of the Urals in 2019 and having an extraordinary interest in it, decided to conduct his own research and approached Alexander Puzrin, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology with experience in geotechnical research.
The wind brought a lot of snow
The Soviet government had classified information about the investigation until the 1970s. The official conclusion of the investigation was that the deaths of the protesters were the result of “activities of unknown forces”.
2019 In February, Russian prosecutors announced the resumption of an investigation into the Diatlov Pass incident and their findings were published in July. According to prosecutors, the cause of death for the protesters was hypothermia (freezing of the body), disorientation and an avalanche.
But some problems have not disappeared. For example, how could an avalanche happen on such a steep slope? How could he have gotten up a few hours after the tent was set up? And why have several hikers suffered injuries that are not usually captured during an avalanche?
At night, the wind likely brought much more snow to the area above the tent, shaking off the avalanche.
The researchers developed an analytical model that allowed them to simulate natural conditions on that Ural night in February 1959, when hikers set up a tent.
Scanpix Photo / Communications Earth and Environment provides incident simulation
The analysis shows that the hikers did not realize that they had pitched a tent on a weak layer of snow. At night, the wind likely brought much more snow to the area above the tent, shaking off the avalanche. Scientists estimate that the avalanche may have occurred between 9 and 13 hours after the tent was installed.
The study also simulated the injuries sustained by hikers, as students were more likely to lie down during the disaster. The researchers found that the conclusions from the simulations and autopsies overlapped.
“This study was the most interesting for me. We feel like detectives. It is true that we do not claim to have guessed the riddle. I think this is a beautiful story of courage and friendship in the face of the brutal power of nature, “said A. Gaume.
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