Meteor Shower Strikes Central Russia, Sparks Panic

A meteor shower streaked central Russia and the Urals region Friday at 9 a.m. local time, causing havoc and injuring 1,000 people, reports authorities.

The plunging meteor that exploded with a flash hit six towns in the Chelyabinsk region, an area of the Urals, damaging most of the buildings and sending glass shards flying through the air.

According to Russian officials, nearly 200 children were injured. Apart from this, gas supply was disrupted to 17 apartment blocks in Chelyabinsk central district and 437 private homes across the city, reports Interfax News Agency.

Schools remained closed on Friday. Nearly 400 people were rushed to hospital and two were kept in the intensive care unit as they had serious injuries.

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"First I thought it was a plane falling, but there was no sound from the engine. After a moment a powerful explosion went off," witness Denis Laskov told state television.

According to ESA spokesman Detlef Koschny in Darmstadt, Germany, this is not the first time such an event has happened "as far as our records go. Mostly they land in the ocean, in deserts or in Siberia, so nothing much bad happens," reports Sacbee.com.

According to the Academic Secretary of the Zuyev Atmosphere Optics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian division Olga Tikhomirova, the meteorite combustion products will not stay in the atmosphere. The combustion products won't linger in the low atmosphere layers and are most likely to come down with rain soon, reports Interfax News Agency.

Russia's emergency ministry sent a 20,000 strong team to Ural Mountains as part of a rescue and cleanup operation, reports BBC.

Such meteor showers are very rare in Russia. Prior to this, a meteor shower in Siberia destroyed an area that was almost 770 sq m in 1908.