Kalaba

Seen to fall in 1951 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo · 950 g recovered · H4

Kalaba is the heaviest of the four falls recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the only H4 fall recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Group: H chondrites
Recorded position: 6.833° S, 29.500° E

The map is centred on Kalaba. Rings every 200 km; numbers match the table below.

Nearest recorded falls

The closest recorded fall to Kalaba is Ivuna, 368 km to the south-east. No other fall in the record lies within 250 km of Kalaba.

#	Fall	Year	Class	Recovered	Distance
1	Ivuna	1938	CI1	705 g	368 km south-east
2	Chela	1988	H4	2.9 kg	484 km north-east
3	Ishinga	1954	H	1.3 kg	528 km south-east
4	Chisenga	1988	Iron, IIIAB	3.9 kg	559 km south-east
5	Ruhobobo	1976	L6	466 g	600 km north
6	Malampaka	1930	H	470 g	606 km north-east

What H4 means

H4 is the label for an ordinary chondrite with high total iron, petrologic type 4, mildly heated on its parent body. By recovered mass Kalaba ranks 39th of the 50 H4 falls. The nearest other H4 fall is Chela in Tanzania, 484 km away. In date order among H4 falls, the one before Kalaba is St. Louis (1950, the United States) and the one after is Avanhandava (1952, Brazil).

Dark ticks: 50 H4 falls, median 5.1 kg (dotted). Grey: all others.

Kalaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s record

In date order Kalaba is number 2 (shared with a fall of the same year) of the 4 falls recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which run from 1949 to 1957. The fall recorded before Kalaba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Alberta (1949); the next is Yambo (1951).

Bigger dots carry more recovered mass.

The 1950s

Kalaba is one of 58 falls dated to the 1950s. Elsewhere, the record lists four other falls in 1951, among them Elenovka in Ukraine, Manych in Russia, Dubrovnik in Croatia.