Devastation from the Heavens
As it ripped through the atmosphere, the small asteroid left a fiery trail in its wake, before it burst two and a half miles above the ancient city. The blast was 1000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Those unfortunates whose eyes had been focused on the plunging space rock when it exploded up were instantly blinded. In a minor mercy, they did not have long to contemplate their loss of sight. Tell el-Hammam was instantly transformed into an inferno. Wood and clothes burst into flames. Pottery, bricks, swords, spears, and metal began to melt as air temperatures spiked about 3600 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the shockwave arrived.
Winds whose speed exceeded 740 miles per hour tore through the city and destroyed all in their path. They sheared the top of the ruler’s four-story palace, and blew the wreckage into the next valley over. Everybody in Tel el-Hammam, around 8000 people, and every animal, perished, mangled, ripped apart, their bones broken, and their bodies incinerated. The shockwave continued on. A minute later, it slammed into biblical Jericho about fourteen miles away, and brought down its walls. As seen below, scholars believe that this ancient catastrophe gave rise to folklore that eventually morphed into the biblical narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah.