Debris from the impact was scattered over an area of and traveled over away — rock fragments ejected by the impact have been found as far as Minnesota.
With such a large impact, debris was most likely scattered globally, but has since been worn away. Its present size is believed to be a smaller portion of a round crater that the bolide originally created.
Subsequent geological processes have deformed the crater into the current smaller oval shape. Sudbury Basin would then be the second-largest crater on Earth, after the Vredefort crater in South Africa, and larger than the Chicxulub crater in Yucatán, Mexico.
The full extent of the Sudbury Basin is long, wide and deep, although the modern ground surface is much shallower.
Ladbroke Grove rail crash
The Ladbroke Grove rail crash was a railway accident outside Paddington station, Ladbroke Grove, in London, on 5 October 1999, in the early morning. It involved 2 trains, one run by Thames Trains, the other by First Great Western.
A train run by Thames Trains left London Paddington railway station for Bedwyn in Wiltshire at 08:06am.
It was a "Thames Turbo", painted in Network SouthEast colours and made up of 3 carriages.
At Ladbroke Grove Junction, trains switched onto the usual route, one track for trains away from London, the other for trains to London.
It should have stopped at a red signal and waited until it could do this safely, but it failed to stop at the signal (called a Signal Passed at Danger or SPAD).
It collided nearly head on with a train run by First Great Western from Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire, after the signal that was changed failed to stop the train.
The train was a diesel High Speed Train, with 8 coaches and two locomotives, one at each end.
The front two coaches of the Thames Turbo were completely destroyed, and the front locomotive of the High Speed Train was badly damaged.
The diesel fuel in the Thames Turbo was scattered as a result and caught fire, which caused separate fires to burn in the wreckage, especially in Coach H of the High Speed Train which was completely burned by the fire.
The drivers of both trains were killed in the crash. Altogether, 31 people died: 24 people on the Thames Turbo and 6 people on the High Speed Train were killed by the crash itself, while another person was killed by the fire. 523 people were injured, of which 227 were taken to hospital. The remaining 296 people were treated where the crash happened.
The immediate cause was the Thames Turbo failing to stop at a red signal at Ladbroke Grove Junction. A signal before it was amber, which should have prepared the driver for the red signal. Because the driver was killed, it was hard to find out why he did not stop at the signal. An inquiry was held in 2000 by Lord Cullen, one year later.
Lord Cullen took note of the fact that the railway line in London Paddington was prone to trains failing to stop at the same red signal that the Thames Turbo passed.
One reason for the driver not stopping was that it was difficult for him to see the signal. It was very early in the morning and the sun was very low in the sky. This made the amber signal difficult to notice. Overhead power lines had been put up for the Heathrow Express to run, which obscured the signals even more.
The crash also happened shortly after the Thames Turbo driver had qualified, after his 2 weeks of training. The trainer did not tell him about the signal and later claimed that he was "not there to teach the routes" and was "totally there to teach how to drive a Turbo". Thames Trains also had no standardised test system for drivers, and no clear pass or fail criteria. The driver had been in the Navy and had little experience on the railways, and had qualified 13 days earlier than British Rail drivers did (British Rail also did not allow new drivers to drive on difficult routes such as the Great Western Main Line between London and Bristol, on which this accident happened, until they got experience on easier routes).
Another reason was that the Thames Turbo had been fitted with a safety system called ATP (automatic train protection), which would have stopped the train if it failed to stop at a red signal, but it was switched off. The High Speed Train's ATP was also off. Although it was recommended after a rail crash at Clapham Junction many years earlier, it had proved annoying in the past and no company required its trains to have it working and switched on.
On 5 April 2004, Thames Trains was fined £2 million for breaching Health & Safety laws in connection with the crash.
On 31 October 2006, 7 years and 26 days after the crash, Network Rail pleaded guilty to charges under the Health & Safety at Work act 1974, was fined £4 million and ordered to pay a further £225,000.
Both the front locomotive of the High Speed Train and the Thames Turbo were written off. The back carriage of the Thames Turbo, however, is now a spare part.
A memorial garden was created next to the Great Western Main Line near Paddington station, near the car park of a Sainsbury's supermarket.
Thames Trains
Thames Trains was a British train operator under franchise running a mixture of short and long distance trains around the Thames Valley. Its services were centered around Reading and ran in the area surrounded by Oxford, Gatwick Airport, Guildford, London, Basingstoke, Worcester, Hereford and Stratford-upon-Avon. It was started when British Rail was privatised and Network SouthEast was broken up. In 2004 it was replaced by First Great Western Link, which was merged with First Great Western and Wessex Trains after 2 years, forming a "Greater Western" franchise.
Thames Trains ran one of the Trains involved in the Ladbroke Grove Rail Crash in 1999, three years after it was started.
Freeport, Bahamas
Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama. It is in North-west Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier, was given 50,000 acres (or 202 km) of pineyard with swamp and scrubland areas by the Bahamian government. They were asked to develop the area economically. Freeport has grown and is now the second most populous city in the Bahamas. The main airport in Freeport is the Grand Bahama International Airport. The Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) runs the free trade zone, under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement signed in August 1955. There, the Bahamian Government agreed that businesses in the Freeport area will pay no taxes before 2054. The area of the land grants has been increased to 138,000 acres (or 526 km).
Grand Bahama International Airport
Grand Bahama International Airport (GBIA) is a privately owned international airport. It is in Freeport, Bahamas. The airport is a joint venture between Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) and The Port Group (or the Grand Bahama Port Authority). It also has of land. This adjoins it to the Freeport Harbour Company Limited. So, they work as one body, known as the Sea Air Business Centre (SABC).
Grand Bahama International Airport is one of two Bahamian airports that has US border preclearance facilities.
The airport has a runway. It can handle the largest aircraft in service. It is quite close to all major cities of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
Florida's Turnpike
Florida's Turnpike (TPK), designated as the Ronald Reagan Turnpike is a north–south toll road. It was originally called Sunshine State Parkway. The road runs through 11 counties in the Florida peninsula. It starts from U.S. Route 1 in Florida City, running through Miami, Fort Lauderdale. At West Palm Beach, it runs parallel to Interstate 95, and then in Orlando, it crosses Interstate 4, to its northern end at Interstate 75 near Wildwood.