Photos And Video: Meteorite Hits Central Russia

The trail of a falling object is seen above the Urals city of Chelyabinsk February 15, 2013, in this picture provided by http://www.chelyabinsk.ru. About 400 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky in central Russia on Friday sending fireballs crashing to Earth, smashing windows and setting off car alarms. REUTERS/www.chelyabinsk.ru/Handout

Something like a bright fireball shot across the sky and exploded in Chelyabinsk, central Russia at 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET) on Friday injuring more than 500 people.

(Please click here for updated news and more photos)

It left a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 200 km (125 miles) away in Yekaterinburg.

According to a Reuters correspondent, people going to work in Chelyabinsk heard a loud sound like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave in the industrial city 1,500 km (950 miles) east of Moscow.

A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant, mobile phone networks were interrupted and on Chelyabinsk’s central Lenin Street, windows were shattered and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled.

The Emergencies Ministry said that it was a “meteor shower in the form of fireballs” and the Interior Ministry said that the loud explosion sound was a sonic boom caused by the meteorite explosion.

It said that the background radiation levels were normal so people should not panic.

(For more videos, please click Videos Of Meteor Explodes Over Russia)

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said the meteorite was travelling at a speed of 30 km (19 miles) per second and that such events were hard to predict. 

(Please click the photos for larger images)

The trail of a falling object is seen above the Urals city of Chelyabinsk, in this view from a residential apartment February 15, 2013. About 400 people were injured when a meteorite shot across the sky in central Russia on Friday sending fireballs crashing to Earth, smashing windows and setting off car alarms. REUTERS/Igor Lyapustin (RUSSIA – Tags: ENVIRONMENT DISASTER)

In this photo taken with a mobile phone camera, a minivan passes a zinc factory building with about 600 square meters (6000 square feet) of a roof collapsed in Chelyabinsk on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. A meteor streaked across the sky of Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring around 100 people, including many hurt by broken glass. (AP Photo/Valentin Kazakov)

Broken windows and debris are seen inside a sports hall following sightings of a falling object in the sky in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk February 15, 2013. REUTERS/OOO Spetszakaz

In this photo taken with a mobile phone camera, a meteorite contrail is seen in Chelyabinsk region on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. A meteor streaked across the sky of Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring around 100 people, including many hurt by broken glass. (AP Photo/Sergey Hametov)

REFILE – QUALITY REPEAT People look at damage to a shop following sightings of a falling object in the sky in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk February 15, 2013. A powerful blast rocked the Russian region of the Urals early on Friday with bright objects, identified as possible meteorites, falling from the sky, emergency officials said. REUTERS/Andrei Kuzmin (RUSSIA – Tags: ENVIRONMENT)

In this frame grab made from a video done with a dashboard camera, on a highway from Kostanai, Kazakhstan, to Chelyabinsk region, Russia, provided by Nasha Gazeta newspaper, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 a meteorite contrail is seen. A meteor streaked across the sky of Russia’s Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and reportedly injuring around 100 people, including many hurt by broken glass. (AP Photo/Nasha gazeta, http://www.ng.kz)

Video:

Please click “Meteorite hits central Russia, 400 hurt” for another video.