A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people.
- Shock wave blew in estimated 100,000sq m of glass- Exploded above the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Urals
The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with some elderly women declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows, curious about what had produced such a blinding flash of light.
The meteor - estimated to be about 10 tons - entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph and shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Amateur video showed an object speeding across the sky, just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening,'' said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million about 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow.
"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.
