“The number of casualties is about 950,” said the governor of the Chelyabinsk region Mikhail Iourevitch cited by the public agency Ria Novosti. The previous report mentioned more than 500 injured in the region. The victims were mostly affected by broken glass, but some suffered head injuries.
This exceptional event, caused by the destruction of a large meteorite accompanied by violent explosions blew out windows in several places and caused panic, according to witnesses quoted by local authorities and agencies. Schools were closed across the region.
An incandescent ball with a very bright white light, moving at a high speed, appeared in the sky of Chelyabinsk, a city of over a million inhabitants, at 9:20 AM local time. “A meteorite disintegrated over the Urals, burning in the lower part of the atmosphere. Fragments of the meteorite hit the Earth and fell in sparsely populated areas of the Chelyabinsk region,” announced the local branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations in a statement.
The meteorite, which would have disintegrated at 15,000 feet above the Urals, weighed “tens of tons,” according to the Russian expert Sergei Smirnov, quoted on channel Rossiya 24. This “fireball” moved from the northeast to the southwest, according to state television.
The event was filmed and posted online by witnesses
“At 11 AM local time, we had many calls for injuries, cuts and bruises,” said the local government quoted by Interfax. Local authorities had previously reported four injured in Chelyabinsk by shards of glass, after the shock wave blew out the windows of many buildings. “The number of victims increases progressively,” said the local branch of the Interior Ministry, quoted by Interfax.
Videos placed by people on the internet showed a glowing meteor across the sky at a low altitude suggesting a near collision with the ground. On another video, some people are out of their homes shirtless, observe the same phenomenon over their building, while explosions are heard. A group was created on the social network Vkontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, where witnesses shared links and videos.
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