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Several meteors fell from sky Friday morning in the southern Russian region of The Urals exploding violently and lighting up the sky as well crashing into walls and shattering windows. As expected the meteor shower created panic and resulted in the injury of about 400 people, several with serious injuries.
Photo: AP
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Morning traffic suddenly stopped in the city of Chelyabinsk while a meteorite partially burned as it entered the atmosphere over the city, lighting up the sky. Several videos of the meteorite were captured, many by car mounted cameras.
Photo: AP
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It is not yet clear if the meteors correspond to asteroid 2012 DA 14, which is expected to pass within 18,000 miles of Earth in the afternoon on Friday, in what is a near miss from the planet.
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The Minister of the Interior in Russia said more than 400 people were injured, three of them seriously, by the shock wave caused by the meteor in Chelyabinsk and half a dozen other cities. The Emergency Situations Ministry said the cell phone communications were temporarily cut.
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"At 9:20 a.m. (local time) a flying object was observed in Chelyabinskat traveling at a high speed and leaving a trail. Two minutes later two explosions were heard," said Yuri Burenko, an official of the Regional Office of Emergency Situations, in a statment.
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"The shock wave broke windows in Chelyabinsk and other cities in the region," he added. Early reports indicated that a portion of the meteorite fell to 80 km from the city of Satki, which itself is located 100 km west the region's center. The reports have not yet been officially confirmed.
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"There were thousands of phone calls reporting found objecdts and that the forest was burning. But we have not yet confirmed reports that something fell" on the ground, said Burenko.
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This meteorite "was a rather large object with a mass of several dozen tons," estimated Russian astronomer Sergei Smirnov, of the Pulkovo Observatory, in an interview broadcast by the channel Russia 24.
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Schools in the region were instructed to close Friday after the shock wave blew out windows in buildings with outside temperatures as low as 18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit).
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The local postal service said several of its buildings were damaged, and that the Traktor Chelyabinsk stadium for ice hockey was also affected, forcing the cancellation of a game. TV footage showed a person with a bloody face and at least one child whose back was covered in blood.
Photo: AP
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Several meteors fell from sky Friday morning in the southern Russian region of The Urals exploding violently and lighting up the sky as well crashing into walls and shattering windows. As expected the meteor shower created panic and resulted in the injury of about 400 people, several with serious injuries.
Photo: AP
