( Updated ) A meteor broke up in the sky Friday morning over the Ural Mountain city of Chelyabinsk, and the shock wave from the explosion smashed windows, collapsed roofs and injured more than 980 people.
The intense flash of light was recorded on video as far away as Nizhny Tagil, nearly 300 miles to the north. The trail of the meteor was also visible in Kazakhstan, more than 80 miles to the south.
Regional Health Minister Marina Mokvicheva in Chelyabinsk said 985 people sought medical help for injuries and 43 were hospitalized.
The Russian Academy of Sciences estimated that the meteor weighed roughly 10 tons and was traveling at 10 to 12 miles per second when it disintegrated.
Searchers found a circular hole in the ice, several feet across, in a lake west of Chelyabinsk, and roped it off.
Residents of Chelyabinsk were drawn outdoors at 9:20 a.m. local time, as a double contrail stretched across the sky. Then came the bright flash, followed a few long moments later by the sound and shock of a huge explosion. Videos posted on Web sites recorded a cacophony of shattering glass, hundreds of car alarms and a considerable amount of swearing.
None of the injuries was considered critical, and no deaths were reported. Doctors at one clinic told a local news Web site, 74.ru, that most of the injuries were either cuts from flying glass or concussions.
The meteor preceded by 16 hours the close passage of an asteroid, known as 2012 DA14. The European Space Agency said the two were not connected.
While in the air, the meteor broke into several dozen large pieces, said Vladimir Puchkov, the emergency situations minister. Officials said they believed they had identified meteorite fragments on the ground in Chebarkul, about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk. They said they had reports of additional fragments spread along a line of settlements stretching 75 miles farther west.
“Thank God no large objects fell in populated areas; however there were still people who were injured,” President Vladimir Putin said. “We need to think about how to help people — not just to think about it but do it immediately.”
The Interior Ministry said it mobilized 10,000 police to deal with the incident.
Alla Yeryomicheva, a blogger in Chelyabinsk, wrote that she was in her apartment when the dark sky suddenly grew as bright as “a July afternoon.” She looked out the window and saw the contrails, but realized they were puffier and more ragged than those a plane would make.
“No sound,” she wrote. “And I thought how very strange ... and then bang! Several times. Our windows and balconies were closed but not tightly and they swept open and everything that was on the windowsills was thrown into the middle of the room.”
A number of schools and hospitals, equipped with older windows, were damaged, she said.
Chelyabinsk, a city of 1.1 million people, has a high concentration of defense industries, and arsenals in its vicinity have occasionally exploded, but the meteor’s arrival appears not to have set any off. The roof on a zinc factory, however, came crashing down.
In Chelyabinsk alone, according to Putin’s statement, “more than 297 [apartment] houses, 12 schools, several social-service facilities and a number of industrial enterprises were damaged.”
The region’s governor, Mikhail Yurevich, said the biggest worry following the incident is the cold. It was 23 degrees Fahrenheit during the day Friday, with much lower temperatures forecast overnight.
“Our main task now is to preserve the heat in offices and homes where windows were shattered, to prevent the heating system from freezing,” he said.
The arrival of the meteor provoked comparisons to the Tunguska event of 1908, when an apparent meteor exploded over a remote part of Siberia — more than 1,000 miles to the east of Chelyabinsk — and flattened nearly 1,000 square miles of forest. Studies suggest that that meteor was on the order of 300 feet across when it exploded — far larger than Friday’s visitor.
The intense flash of light was recorded on video as far away as Nizhny Tagil, nearly 300 miles to the north. The trail of the meteor was also visible in Kazakhstan, more than 80 miles to the south.
Regional Health Minister Marina Mokvicheva in Chelyabinsk said 985 people sought medical help for injuries and 43 were hospitalized.
The Russian Academy of Sciences estimated that the meteor weighed roughly 10 tons and was traveling at 10 to 12 miles per second when it disintegrated.
Searchers found a circular hole in the ice, several feet across, in a lake west of Chelyabinsk, and roped it off.
Residents of Chelyabinsk were drawn outdoors at 9:20 a.m. local time, as a double contrail stretched across the sky. Then came the bright flash, followed a few long moments later by the sound and shock of a huge explosion. Videos posted on Web sites recorded a cacophony of shattering glass, hundreds of car alarms and a considerable amount of swearing.
None of the injuries was considered critical, and no deaths were reported. Doctors at one clinic told a local news Web site, 74.ru, that most of the injuries were either cuts from flying glass or concussions.
The meteor preceded by 16 hours the close passage of an asteroid, known as 2012 DA14. The European Space Agency said the two were not connected.
While in the air, the meteor broke into several dozen large pieces, said Vladimir Puchkov, the emergency situations minister. Officials said they believed they had identified meteorite fragments on the ground in Chebarkul, about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk. They said they had reports of additional fragments spread along a line of settlements stretching 75 miles farther west.
“Thank God no large objects fell in populated areas; however there were still people who were injured,” President Vladimir Putin said. “We need to think about how to help people — not just to think about it but do it immediately.”
The Interior Ministry said it mobilized 10,000 police to deal with the incident.
Alla Yeryomicheva, a blogger in Chelyabinsk, wrote that she was in her apartment when the dark sky suddenly grew as bright as “a July afternoon.” She looked out the window and saw the contrails, but realized they were puffier and more ragged than those a plane would make.
“No sound,” she wrote. “And I thought how very strange ... and then bang! Several times. Our windows and balconies were closed but not tightly and they swept open and everything that was on the windowsills was thrown into the middle of the room.”
A number of schools and hospitals, equipped with older windows, were damaged, she said.
Chelyabinsk, a city of 1.1 million people, has a high concentration of defense industries, and arsenals in its vicinity have occasionally exploded, but the meteor’s arrival appears not to have set any off. The roof on a zinc factory, however, came crashing down.
In Chelyabinsk alone, according to Putin’s statement, “more than 297 [apartment] houses, 12 schools, several social-service facilities and a number of industrial enterprises were damaged.”
The region’s governor, Mikhail Yurevich, said the biggest worry following the incident is the cold. It was 23 degrees Fahrenheit during the day Friday, with much lower temperatures forecast overnight.
“Our main task now is to preserve the heat in offices and homes where windows were shattered, to prevent the heating system from freezing,” he said.
The arrival of the meteor provoked comparisons to the Tunguska event of 1908, when an apparent meteor exploded over a remote part of Siberia — more than 1,000 miles to the east of Chelyabinsk — and flattened nearly 1,000 square miles of forest. Studies suggest that that meteor was on the order of 300 feet across when it exploded — far larger than Friday’s visitor.
Source : Washingtonpost
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