As one may remember, on the 29th of July 1999, Moscow customs confiscated the rock and lacustrine sediment samples collected in Tunguska (Central Siberia) by the Tunguska99 Scientific expedition. The lack of the samples to be analyzed would make vain a great part of the human and financial efforts expended to achieve the expedition.
The Department of Physics of Bologna University, in collaboration with the Moscow Research Institute of Aviation Systems (GosNIIAS) have cleared up the numberous bureaucratic requirements necessary to obtain the release of the samples. Thanks to the efficiency of the Russian Authorities the samples left Moscow for Bruxelles on the 3rd of December 1999 and were released to the Department of Physics on the 7-th of December 1999 after a brief inspection performed by Italian customs in the same morning.
At present, with a four month delay, it will be possible to begin the larger part of the analyses necessary to throw light on the Tunguska event, as was planned in the scientific programme of the expedition.
See photo: the registration of cores.
Bologna, 9 December 1999
For the Tunguska99 Press Office:
Luigi Foschini
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