MOSCOW, February 15 (RIA Novosti) – A hail of meteorite fragments has injured hundreds of people in central Russia, health officials confirmed on Friday.
As of mid-day Moscow time, over 700 people had sought medical assistance in the hard-hit Chelyabinsk Region as a result of the strikes, including 159 children, Chelyabinsk city officials said. Health officials said 112 people had been hospitalized in the region, with two reported to be in a "grave" condition. Most people were hurt by shattering glass.
President Vladimir Putin ordered emergencies officials to provide "immediate" assistance to people affected by the meteorite. Gas supplies were cut off to hundreds of homes in the Chelyabinsk region as a safety precaution. An estimated 20,000 emergency response workers have been mobilized.
Background radiation levels reportedly remain unchanged. This was confirmed both by emergencies officials, and by the national nuclear agency, concerned because the area has a fair number of nuclear facilities.
Reports about whether this was one large meteorite or many smaller ones initially varied, but the national space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed by early afternoon that the object had been a single meteorite, a report given earlier by emergency officials.
“Verified information indicates that this was one meteorite which burned up as it approached Earth and disintegrated into smaller pieces,” deputy head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry press office, Elena Smirnykh, said.
Roscosmos stated the meteorite had been moving at a speed of 30 km per second.
"All the city's residents saw blinding flashes, very bright ones," a teacher in the Chelyabinsk Region told RIA Novosti. "Suddenly, it was very, very horribly bright. Not like the lights got turned on, but as if everything was illuminated with unusual white light."
Officials are trying to determine where the fragments have landed.
The Chelyabinsk governor said one had fallen in a lake in his region, while others have been reported in the Tyumen, Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions as well. Russia's Defense Ministry said soliders had discovered a six-meter wide crater near the Chelyabinsk lake. Radiation levels around the crater were reported to be normal.
Emergency officials in west Kazakhstan said they were searching for two unidentified objects that fell in the country's Aktobe region.
The European Space Agency (ESA) said there was no link between the meteorite and the 2012 DA14 asteroid which is due to pass close by the Earth later on Friday.
However, Tatiana Bordovitsina, an astronomy professor at Tomsk State University in western Siberia, told RIA Novosti two hours before the ESA statement that the meteorite could have been debris preceding the asteroid, but said a more thorough examination of the incident was needed.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at an economic forum going on in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, called the meteorite “a symbol of the forum.”
“I hope that there will be no serious consequences, but it is a demonstration that it is not only the economy that is vulnerable, but our planet as well,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment