By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) - A meteor that scientists estimate
weighed 10 tons (11 tons) streaked at supersonic speed over Russia's
Ural Mountains on Friday, setting off blasts that injured some 500
people and frightened countless more.
The Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement
that the meteor over the Chelyabinsk region entered the Earth's
atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered
about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above ground.
The fall caused explosions that broke glass over a
wide area. The Emergency Ministry says more than 500 people sought
treatment after the blasts and that 34 of them were hospitalized.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was
happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they
were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500
kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected
region.
"We saw a big burst of light then went outside to
see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he told
The Associated Press by telephone.
Another Chelyabinsk resident, Valya Kazakov, said
some elderly women in his neighborhood started crying out that the world
was ending.
Some fragments fell in a reservoir outside the town
of Cherbakul, the regional governor's office said, according to the
ITAR-Tass news agency. It was not immediately clear if any people were
struck by fragments.
The agency also cited military spokesman Yarslavl
Roshupkin as saying that a six-meter-wide (20-foot-wide) crater was
found in the same area which could be the result of fragments striking
the ground.
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.
Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said
that about 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of a roof at a zinc
factory had collapsed. There was no immediate clarification of whether
the collapse was caused by meteorites or by a shock wave from one of the
explosions.
Reports conflicted on what exactly happened in the
clear skies. A spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry, Irina Rossius,
told The Associated Press that there was a meteor shower, but another
ministry spokeswoman, Elena Smirnikh, was quoted by the Interfax news
agency as saying it was a single meteor.
Amateur video broadcast on Russian television
showed an object speeding across the sky about 9:20 a.m. local time
(0320 GMT), leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
Donald Yeomans, manager of U.S. Near Earth Object
Program in California, said he thought the event was probably "an
exploding fireball event."
"If the reports of ground damage can be verified,
it might suggest an object whose original size was several meters in
extent before entering the atmosphere, fragmenting and exploding due to
the unequal pressure on the leading side vs. the trailing side (it
pancaked and exploded)," Yeoman said in an email to The Associated
Press.
"It is far too early to provide estimates of the
energy released or provide a reliable estimate of the original size,"
Yeomans added.
Russian news reports noted that the meteor hit less
than a day before the asteroid 2012 DA14 is to make the closest
recorded pass of an asteroid -- about 17,150 miles (28,000 kilometers).
But the European Space Agency, in a post on its Twitter account, said its experts had determined there was no connection.
Small pieces of space debris - usually parts of
comets or asteroids - that are on a collision course with the Earth are
called meteoroids. When meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere they are
called meteors. 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.
The dramatic events prompted an array of reactions
from prominent Russian political figures. Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev, speaking at an economic forum in the Siberian city of
Krasnoyarsk, said the meteor could be a symbol for the forum, showing
that "not only the economy is vulnerable, but the whole planet."
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.
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.
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Max Seddon in Moscow contributed to this story.
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