Smoke & Ash From Forest Fires Blot Out The Sun For Three Hours In Yakutia (Eastern Siberia)

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For the Russian republic of Yakutia (also called Sakha) — a chunk of Siberia that's home to the coldest cities in the world — July is a welcome reprieve from the seven-month winter that rampages from October through April. It's a rare time of year when locals can step outside without the risk of their spectacles freezing to their faces, a time when the merciful sun can hang in the sky for more than 20 hours a day instead of less than 2.

Imagine the confusion and disappointment, then, when locals in at least two districts of Yakutia stepped outside Friday afternoon (July 20) and saw the sun completely blotted out for 3 hours. [Photos: 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse]

According to the regional news site Yakutia 24, the Eveno-Bytantaysky and Zhigansky districts of Yakutia inexplicably plunged into 3 hours of mysterious darkness between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time on Friday. Photos provided by bewildered locals show little more than the black shadows of trees and buildings cast against a reddish haze of sky. Adding to the ominous atmosphere, the air seemed to be thick with a grimy haze of black dust.

"It was impossible to be in the street," witnesses of the bizarre event told the news site Sakha Daily. Other locals reported that it was suddenly pitch-black in their homes, that the mysterious smog turned barrels of water into barrels of mud and that nearby lakes emerged from the eclipse covered in a filthy, black layer of pollution.

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https://www.livescience.com/63143-siberia-pollution-eclipse.html