AP: fc86c9fb-9f1c-4f6a-957a-91353d54a6d2
The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor that streaked into the skies over the Ural Mountains and caused shock waves that injured more than 400 people weighed about 10 tons (11 tons avoirdupois). (AP Photo/Chelyabinsk.ru)

Report: 1,000 injured as meteor falls in Russia

BY Jamie Skorheim  on February 15, 2013 @ 5:26 am (Updated: 11:45 am - 2/15/13 )

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The Russian Academy of Sciences is estimating the meteor that streaked into the skies over the Ural Mountains and caused shock waves that reportedly injured more than 1,000 people weighed about 10 tons (11 tons avoirdupois).

The academy said in a statement hours after the Friday morning 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 kilometers (18-32 miles) above ground.

CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood explained to KIRO Radio Seattle's Morning News that while the meteor exploded when it hit the earth's atmosphere, the force from such an event can still cause significant damage.

"When you get something this size, it hits the atmosphere and it kind of pancakes," said Harwood. "The thing will literally explode in the air and you get a shock wave, you get the sonic boom, and of course in this case, it caused quite a bit of damage in Russia."

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.

The fall caused explosions that broke glass over a wide area. Around 1,000 people reportedly sought treatment after the blasts and at least 34 of them were hospitalized.

Some meteorites, fragments of the meteor, 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.

Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said 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.

Some 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).

"It's another sign that we kind of live in a shooting gallery," said CBS' Harwood. "It certainly is an eye opening event and quite a coincidence since as you know there is an asteroid flying by later today."

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.

Harwood told the Seattle's Morning News staff that these events happen pretty frequently, but we don't always see them.

"The world is 75 percent ocean, things come in over the ocean nobody sees it, or in a remote area. But every single day the scientists tell us more than 100 tons of material falls into earth's atmosphere," said Harwood.

The drama of this highly visible event 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.

Many at the scene didn't know how to react.

"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.

The Associated Press, and Max Seddon in Moscow contributed to this story.

Jamie Skorheim, MyNorthwest.com Editor
Whether it's floating on Green Lake, eating shrimp tacos at Agua Verde, or taking weekend drives out to the Cascades, she loves to enjoy the Pacific Northwest lifestyle as much as humanly possible.
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Comments (25)


  • Add A Comment

  • Rangerhawk wrote...
    Not connected ?
    February 15, 2013 5:02 am
    Of course not silly. We track objects smaller than a wrench up there but a 10 ton rock nobody saw coming? Kinda makes you wonder.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ScoSher77 wrote...
    @Rangerhawk
    February 15, 2013 4:32 pm
    That is kinda odd huh? They can spot everything else but a 10 ton rock cruising at 30 some odd thousand mph towards earth. I wonder if Biederman and Billy Bob saw this thing coming a year ago and forgot to tell someone. hmmmm
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ScoSher77 wrote...
    In the water
    February 15, 2013 4:54 pm
    And it makes a perfect round hole in the ice. So if it was coming across the sky and dropped down on an angle, then why does the hole look like it came from straight up? Wouldn't the hole be oblong and the ice shattered around the hole and/or ice shoved away from the opening as if it slide across the ice than sank? I dunno, maybe I'm thinking N. Korea did another missile test.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Drool wrote...
    You Geniuses....
    February 15, 2013 5:13 pm
    ...apparently can't tell the difference between things that are in Earth orbit and things that are not. Earth orbiting bodies are tracked. This meteor was not an earth orbiting body. Nor is the asteroid that just passed us.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ScoSher77 wrote...
    @Drool
    February 19, 2013 1:21 pm
    So the one that just passed us, they watched it as it came and went and knew exactly when it was going to pass us and the distance. So if the other passed by a satellite, it wont pick it up after it went by? Awesome.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    Dear Leader must be in the bunker
    February 15, 2013 5:37 am
    the peasants will be the last to know if there is anything to worry about.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CameronAtLarge wrote...
    You know, I always find it funny...
    February 15, 2013 7:49 am
    that people cannot stop their ideological tirades when something random happens. It always comes back to, "That Obama Guy" or "Them dang Republicans" instead of actually looking at it and saying, "Oh, science is sometimes dangerous." You disappoint me, Paul Kersey.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    If you find it funny
    February 15, 2013 8:43 am
    why are you disappointed?
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CH wrote...
    to bad it did not hit
    February 15, 2013 6:09 am
    the Congress!!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • shark75 wrote...
    Can't wait to hear what Bill Nye the "Good2Go" guy has to say about this
    February 15, 2013 6:40 am
    Maybe by equipping our cars with tolling transponders we could have avoided the global warming that drew the meteor in to begin with...
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • maplefish wrote...
    Yeah,
    February 15, 2013 8:28 am
    I coulda sworn just yesterday that super-scientist Bill Nye said we has nothing to worry about? And then this? And you want me to believe the guy's global warming rhetoric????
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ron prevost wrote...
    not a meteor -
    February 15, 2013 6:55 am
    an errant drone strike.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • HLC wrote...
    Must be the same government drones looking for meteors.
    February 15, 2013 7:15 am
    That are running our senate. Their heads are in a dark place. Wake up people. They are letting things get to us that can kill us, both the sky watchers and the senate.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • CameronAtLarge wrote...
    I am fully awake
    February 15, 2013 7:52 am
    and realize that only 2% of our earth's surface is being watched. This isn't that there isn't a will to study more, on the contrary. It's that we've devalued science to the point where nobody can afford to watch much anymore. Nobody's sleeping. They're just ignorant.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Fuego wrote...
    What are the odds
    February 15, 2013 7:41 am
    that it didn't hit a highly populated area or better yet, some spot in the ocean. The earth is what... 2/3 water and it actually hit land. Pretty amazing and I'm sure we won't be as lucky the next time.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Milred wrote...
    If everything happens for a reason......
    February 15, 2013 9:20 am
    then I can't wait to find out if this was god's doing or the debil??
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • maplefish wrote...
    Milred
    February 15, 2013 10:04 am
    Now that was funny....
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Cbrew wrote...
    Crazy... The Sky is falling! lol
    February 15, 2013 9:20 am
    I bet that was LOUD too... thank goodness nobody was severely injured... sounds like property damage isn't too terrible etc. but wow, what are the odds one of these things punches through on the day the bigger one is supposed to pass by... lot of conspiracy theorists going to have a field day with this one.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Lonestar wrote...
    Background checks
    February 15, 2013 10:19 am
    For meteors!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }