CompactFlash card survives explosion of 272kg TNT

Earlier this month, 50-year-old Frazier was assigned by the Southeast Missourian newspaper to take photos of the dismantling of a section of a highway bridge along the Mississippi River. He set up three digital cameras, about 240 feet away from the bridge, on the Missouri side of the river in Cape Girardeau, Mo. That was too close, as two of the cameras were damaged and a third was totally destroyed--but not before capturing images of the bridge's final moments.

The 256MB SanDisk CompactFlash card used in the camera survived the blast and stored the images until Frazier could later download them to his PC. The cards are solid-state media, which means that the circuits are made of solid materials and have no moving parts.