- Moment meteorite exploded in the sky above Russian town as doctors treat 950 people injured when sonic boom shattered windows
- Large object flashed across the sky at 9.20am local time
- Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames
- 82 of the injured are children and two are in intensive care
- Landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a neighbouring town
- 6,000 square feet of a roof at a zinc factory collapsed
- One local said it 'was like a scene from the Armageddon movie'
- Same day as Asteroid 2012 DA14, which is due to skim Earth's orbit tonight
- The city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border, took the brunt of the super sonic impact.
Spectacular sky: The Urals region was struck by falling meteorite fragments which fell in the city of Chelyabinsk, 900 miles east of Moscow and close to the Kazakhstan border
- Tim O'Brien, associate director of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, said the injuries were caused when the meteor created a sonic boom. 'This reasonably large chunk of rock was moving faster than the speed of sound, maybe 20,000 miles per hour. It made a sonic boom in the atmosphere, and that hit buildings and shattered windows. That is what seems to have caused the injuries,' he explained.
- A six metre wide hole was found in the ground close to Lake Chebarkul, said Russian military sources cited by RIA Novosti news agency.
- Earlier it was thought the main body of the meteorite had hit the lake. 'The meteorite that passed over the Chelyabinsk region fell into a body of water 1km from the city of Chebarkul,' said a statement posted on the website of Chelyabinsk governor, Mikhail Yurevich.
- According to an unconfirmed report in Russia Today, the meteorite was intercepted by Russian air defense.
- The strike came on the same day that Asteroid 2012 DA14 is due to skim the orbit of the Earth tonight. But astronomers say that it is probably just a coincidence - Dr Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society told MailOnline: 'As I understand it, the Russian meteorite(s) were travelling from east to west whereas 2012 DA14 will be travelling from north to south.'
- Pictures show a streak of smoke followed by several bright blasts of flames and eyewitnesses spoke of several devastating explosions.
- Mobile phones are only working intermittently and there were localised power cuts.
- According to RT.com, the Urals regional centre of the Emergency Ministry claimed it sent out a mass text message warning residents about a possible meteorite shower. But eyewitnesses said they either never received it, or got the message after the explosion had already occurred.
Fear: First reports suggested that there had been a plane crash but officials confirmed it was one or more meteorites falling to Earth
Wounded: This woman suffered cuts across her face when the sonic boom of the meteor sent broken glass flying
- The emergencies ministry said that 10,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those needing help.
- All schools and kindergartens were closed in Chelyabinsk region today.
Damaged: A zinc factory in Chelyabinsk was seen with a partially collapsed roof and walls in the morning after meteor pieces rained on the town
Moment of impact: A pair, seen on CCTV, cower from the impact as the window near them explodes
- The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor weighed about 10 tons.
- The academy said in a statement hours fall that the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered about 30-50 kilometres (18-32 miles) above ground.
- One eyewitness Gulnara Dudka, in her 20s, gave a dramatic account of the meteorite, telling how she feared 'doomsday' had arrived, reported the Siberian Times.
- Residents in one 19 storey block reported feeling the shockwaves of the explosions.
- The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down.
- The meteorite flew across the Russian sky from the direction of Kazakhstan, its trajectory going over southern Siberia, above the Tyumen, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions, said the head of the Urals regional branch of the Emergencies Ministry press service, Vadim Grebennikov.
- Officials stressed that radiation levels remained normal amid fears that one of dozens of nuclear facilities in the region could have been hit.
Ruined: The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, said a witness, and there were reports that the internet and mobile networks were temporarily down
- Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader noted for vehement statements, said 'It's not meteors falling, it's the test of a new weapon by the Americans,' the RIA Novosti news agency reported. 'At the moment we are checking the territories and counting how many towns and settlements suffered from it. 'Preliminary information says the meteorite did not fall down but exploded in the air. '
Destroyed: The building of the local zinc plant badly damaged by a shockwave from a meteorite impact
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279020/Russian-meteorite-Moment-meteorite-exploded-doctors-treat-500-people-injured.html#ixzz2KzNUsU5a
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- The site of Friday's spectacular show is about 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) west of Tunguska, which 1908 was the site of the largest recorded explosion of a space object plunging to Earth. That blast, attributed to a comet or asteroid fragment, is generally estimated to have been about 10 megatons; it leveled some 80 million trees.
- Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space. "At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
- Small pieces of space debris — usually parts of comets or asteroids — that are on a collision course with the Earth are called meteoroids. They become meteors when they enter the Earth'satmosphere. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the surface of the Earth they are called meteorites. Meteors typically cause sizeable sonic booms when they enter the atmosphere because they are traveling much faster than the speed of sound. Injuries on the scale reported Friday, however, are extraordinarily rare.
for the following video...
Published on Feb 15, 2013
Multiple meteors touched down in Central Russia in Ural region February 15th. These meteors caused injury from shattered windows, and broken class. It is believed these meteors broke off from the larger meteor 2012-Da14, which missed the earth by less than 30,000 miles the same day. Had Da-14 stuck earth, it would have destroyed everything within a 10 mile radius much like a nuclear bomb. In this video we see a building getting damaged.
for the following video...
At 7:17 AM on the morning of June 30, 1908, a mysterious explosion occurred in the skies over Siberia. It was caused by the impact and breakup of a large meteorite, at an altitude roughly six kilometers in the atmosphere. Realistic pictures of the event are unavailable. However, Russian scientists collected eyewitness accounts of the event. I believe that we now know enough about large impacts to "decode" the subjective descriptions of the witnesses and create realistic views of this historic asteroid impact as seen from different distances.
Russia is no stranger to this type of event. A huge event happened in 1908 called the Tunguska Event.
