UPDATED NUMBER OF INJURED: Amateur videos have captured what is believed to be the meteor that shed fragments and injured more than 700 people in Russia this morning. Reports say the meteor is not related to asteroid 2012 DA14, which is to safely pass by close to Earth later today.
AP reports the meteor fragments caused explosions and broken glass that injured more than 700 people in the region of the city of Chelyabinsk, about 1,335 kilometres east of Moscow, the Emergency Ministry said in a statement.
Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said about 600 sq metres of a roof at a zinc factory had also collapsed.
Russia Academy of Sciences estimates put the weight of the meteor at 10 tonnes, AP reported.
Mixed reports about what exactly happened overhead at 9.20am local time (3.20am GMT) have emerged from the Emergency Ministry, with one spokeswoman attributing the explosions and injuries to a meteor shower, and another said a single meteorite is responsible.
Single meteor or meteor shower, one of the amateur videos, which looks to have been shot from a vehicle travelling on a motorway, shows a bright object falling across the clear sky, growing brighter and brighter as it approaches Earth.
The second video shows the vapour trail the meteor left in its wake as it streaked across the sky, then the sound of a crash and alarms going off.
Indications have been that there is no correlation between this event and asteroid 2012 DA14, which is expected to come within 26,700 kilometres above the Earth’s surface as it shoots past the planet at about 7.25pm GMT today.
Watch the video of the space object flying over Russia this morning here:
Watch the Explosions In The Sky! – Russia Meteor UFO Explosion video here:
