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• 1,200 have been known injured since a meteor exploded Friday morning
over Russia's Urals region. • The authorities said the meteorite did not
cause any major damage.
Photo
taken on Feb. 16, 2013 shows a factory building damaged by the
shockwave of the meteorite fall in Russia's Ural city of Chelyabinsk.
Some 1,200 people have been injured and many houses damaged as a
meteorite struck Russia's Urals region on Friday. (Xinhua/Jiang Kehong)
MOSCOW, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- About 1,200 people have been known
injured and many buildings damaged since a meteor exploded on Friday
morning, raining fireballs over Russia's central Urals region, the
Interior Ministry said.
Most of the injured, among them 200 children, suffered cuts by broken
glass from thousands of shattered windows during the very rare
meteorite explosion, according to the ministry.
Residents in the region uploaded videos of a fireball cutting through
the sky. The fireball, travelling at a speed of 30 km per second
according to Russian space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the
horizon.
The main impact happened 80 km from the town of Satki in Chelyabinsk
region. It has not been confirmed whether the damage was caused by the
rock's impact or an airwave caused by its explosion in the lower layers
of the atmosphere.
"What happened over the Urals region was not a meteor shower, as was
reported earlier," Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yelena
Smirnykh told the Interfax news agency. "It was a single meteor which
burned up as it passed through the lower layers of the Earth's
atmosphere."
Emergency teams were on alert in the regions of Chelyabinsk, Kurgan,
Sverdlovsk, Samara and Saratov, where meteorite pieces fell. Mobile
phone networks were disrupted.
However, the authorities said the meteorite did not cause any major
damage. "There is no damage to heating, gas supply, energy grids. All
systems work properly," Chelyabinsk deputy governor Sergei Komyakov told
reporters.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said in a press release that the
accident caused no damage to the military units deployed in the Central
Military District. "None of the personnel was injured," it said.
The rock could have weighed several dozens of tons, Sergei Smirnov,
an expert from Pulkovo observatory, told the Russia-24 state TV channel.
"During the impact, such a huge body becomes disintegrated with the
velocity of the fragments reaching several kilometers per second," he
said.
In an unrelated but also rare event, an asteroid half the size of a
football field passed closer to the earth than any other known object of
this size on Friday.
The Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed about 27,700 km from Earth at 1925 GMT.
"We have two rare events of near-Earth objects approaching the Earth
on the same day," NASA scientist Paul Chodas said, stressing "it's
simply a coincidence."
Experts said the two objects came from different directions at different speeds.
Meanwhile, a meteor-like object fell from the sky over central Cuba
on Thursday night local time and turned into a fireball "bigger than the
sun" before it exploded, a Cuban TV channel reported Friday, citing
eyewitnesses.
One resident was quoted as saying that his house shook slightly in the blast.
It remains unknown whether the reported phenomenon in Cuba is related to the meteor strike in central Russia. Related: Suspected meteor explosion reported in central Cuba
HAVANA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- An object fell from the sky over central
Cuba on Thursday night and turned into a fireball "bigger than the sun"
before it exploded, a Cuban TV channel reported Friday, citing
eyewitnesses.
Some residents in the central province of Cienfuegos were quoted as
saying that at around 8 p.m. local time Thursday (0100 GMT Friday) they
saw a bright spot in the sky comparable to a bus in size. Full story Putin orders assistance after meteor explodes over Ural Mountains
MOSCOW, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- President Vladimir Putin has ordered
immediate assistance for people living in Russia's Ural Mountains after a
meteor exploded over the region on Friday, injuring at least 520.
"Every effort should be made to objectively estimate the damage.
People have been injured. Assistance must be provided to them
immediately," Putin said in a statement posted on the Kremlin's website.Full story
MOSCOW, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- A meteorite burst into the sky over
Russia's Urals region and burned up before landing, the Emergency
Situations Ministry said Friday.
"What happened over the Urals region was not a meteor shower, as was
reported earlier," ministry spokesperson Yelena Smirnykh told the
Interfax news agency. "It was a meteorite which burned up as it passed
through the lower layers of the Earth atmosphere."Full story Dozens seek medical assistance in meteorite-hit Urals
MOSCOW, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 50 people have sought medical
assistance after a meteorite burst into the sky over Russia's Urals
region, the Interior Ministry said Friday.
"According to preliminary data as of 10:00 Moscow time (0600 GMT),
about 50 people in the Chelyabinsk Region have sought medical
attention," said the ministry's press center. Full story
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