The tornado path continued for 5–6 km, with a maximum width of up to 300 meters. 48 farm and residential buildings were destroyed, and 30 cars were damaged.
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Today, such a tornado visit would be widely covered in the press and there would be many shots from the scene on social networks, but at that time few people learned about the event. During the Soviet era, all news in the press was censored, so it was not possible to take and write about natural (or man-made) disasters in the next day’s newspaper issue.
Even meteorologists, some of whom had access to more confidential information, were ordered not to leak anything if they wanted to continue working. Because of this, in the first days after the tornado, there were no reports about the terrible event in newspapers or on television at all. Short messages appeared in the Širvintos newspaper expressing condolences to the family of the deceased driver. The same driver who was killed by the tornado.
In the national press, only on June 4 (i.e., after 6 days) was a very short report about the tornado published: “On May 29 of this year, at about 5 p.m., a powerful tornado swept through the outskirts of Širvintos. It caused considerable material damage to city enterprises and residents. The butter and cheese factory, the technical yard of the land reclamation construction department, 15 residential houses were destroyed, and 30 cars were damaged. One person died, and there are injured.”
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Meteorologist Mykolas Mikalajūnas was also quoted: “Judging by the scale of the destruction, the wind speed inside the vortex reached at least 70 meters per second, although the tornado itself moved much slower – at about 15 kilometers per hour.” Thus, the Širvintos tornado reached the F2 category on the Fujita scale.
Much more information about the tornado with photos of the damage and eyewitness accounts appeared only on July 7, when the disaster and its consequences were described in the newspaper “Tiesa” and later in the magazine “Švyturys.” The event was briefly covered in a “Soviet Lithuania” report, but only after the aftermath of the disaster had more or less been dealt with. It was revealed that injured people were assisted by Širvintos hospital staff, and two seriously injured people had to be taken to Vilnius. Official statistics: 1 person died, about 30 were injured.
