New Video Shows Just How Big the Nord Stream Explosion Was

“It is only an extreme force that can bend metal that thick in the way we are seeing,” said Trond Larsen, the submersible operator with Blueye Robotics, to Expressen as quoted in Barron’s. Additionally, Larsen says he observed “a very large impact on the seabed around the pipe.” Blueye Robotics did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment.

The Nord Stream network consists of two pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, that run a collective 2,456 kilometers (1,526 miles) beneath the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 1 has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas. While Nord Stream 2 has not yet entered service, its capacity would reportedly double this volume. A total of four leaks have been identified across the pipelines’ distance, which may have resulted in the largest methane leak ever—an estimate from the Danish government suggests a total emission of 778 million cubic meters of gas.

Previous tensions between Russia and Germany regarding the Nord Stream pipeline project include Germany blocking the activation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline last February amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In July, Gazprom, the state-owned majority shareholder in Nord Stream, reportedly curtailed the throughput of Nord Stream 1 to 20% of the maximum capacity.