Videos capture exploding meteor in sky
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: More than 4,000 buildings, mostly apartment blocks, were damaged, state media report
- NEW: State media: Local officials estimate the cost of damage at more than $33 million
- The meteor released a 500-kiloton blast, NASA officials say
- More than 1,000 people are hurt, most by flying glass
Chelyabinsk, Russia (CNN) -- A day after a spectacular meteor blast shook Russia's Urals region, the clean-up operation got under way Saturday in the hard-hit Russian city of Chelyabinsk.
Although some buildings were unscathed when the sonic waves from the Friday morning explosion reverberated through the city and region, others lost some or most windows.
More than 1,000 people were injured, including more than 200 children, the news agency said. Many of them were hit by flying glass.
Most of those hurt are in the Chelyabinsk region, though the vast majority of injuries are not thought to be serious.
Altogether, more than 4,000 buildings, mostly apartment blocks, were damaged and 200,000 square kilometers (77,220 square miles) of glass were broken, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited the Chelyabinsk regional emergencies ministry as saying Saturday.
Local officials have estimated the damage at over 1 billion rubles (over $33 million), RIA Novosti said.
The city of Chelyabinsk was functioning normally Saturday as the repair work began.
Many believe it had a lucky escape as fragments of the meteor came raining down.
Meteor streaks through Russian skies Over 100 tons of material falls daily Witness: Meteor explosion 'terrifying' West of the city, authorities have sealed off a section of a frozen lake where it's believed a sizable meteorite crashed through the ice.
Opinion: Don't count 'doomsday asteroid' out yet
The meteor was a once-in-a-century event, NASA officials said, describing it as a "tiny asteroid."
The space agency revised its estimate of the meteor's size upward late Friday from 49 feet (15 meters) to 55 feet (17 meters), and its estimated mass from 7,000 to 10,000 tons.
The space agency also increased the estimated amount of energy released in the meteor's explosion from about 300 to nearly 500 kilotons. By comparison, the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 released an estimated 15 kilotons of energy.
The whole event, from the meteor's atmospheric entry to its disintegration in the air above central Russia, took 32.5 seconds, NASA said.
About 20,000 emergency response workers were mobilized Friday, RIA Novosti reported.
Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov arrived in the city of Chelyabinsk on Friday evening to take stock of the situation, the official Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Hospitals, kindergartens and schools were among the buildings affected by the blast, said Vladimir Stepanov, of the National Center for Emergency Situations at the Russian Interior Ministry.
Read more: Saving Earth from asteroids
Amateur video footage showed a bright white streak moving rapidly across the sky, before exploding with an even brighter flash and a deafening bang.
The explosion occurred about 9:20 a.m. local time, as many people were out and about.
Russians captured vivid images, many using dash cameras inside their vehicles.
Dash cameras are popular in Russia for several reasons, including possible disputes over traffic accidents and the corrupt reputations of police in many areas. Drivers install the cameras for their own protection and to document incidents they could be caught in; on Friday, they were able to document a spectacular natural phenomenon.
CNN iReporter and Instagram user Max Chuykov saw the meteor trail from the city of Yekaterinburg. He shared on Instagram that it was "close to the ground."
Witness Ekaterina Shlygina posted to CNN iReport and wrote on Instagram: "Upon Chelyabinsk a huge fireball has exploded. It wasn't an aircraft."
The national space agency, Roscosmos, said scientists believed one meteoroid had entered the atmosphere, where it burned and disintegrated into fragments.
Read more: When the Quadrantid meteor shower hit its peak
Five regions of Russia, one of them Chelyabinsk, are thought to have been affected, as well as neighboring Kazakhstan, Itar-Tass said.
NASA said on its website that the meteor was the largest reported since 1908, when the famous Tunguska event took place in remote Siberia.
In that incident, an asteroid entered the atmosphere and exploded, leveling about 80 million trees over an area of 820 square miles -- about two-thirds the size of Rhode Island -- but leaving no crater.
"We would expect an event of this magnitude to occur once every 100 years on average," said Paul Chodas, of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. He was referring to the latest meteor.
"When you have a fireball of this size we would expect a large number of meteorites to reach the surface and in this case there were probably some large ones."
NASA estimates 4,700 'potentially hazardous' asteroids
In what astronomers said was an unrelated coincidence, a larger asteroid, called 2012 DA14, passed relatively close to Earth around 2:24 p.m. ET Friday.
Stargazers in Australia, Asia and Eastern Europe could see the asteroid with the aid of a telescope or binoculars, but it never got closer than 17,100 miles to our planet's surface.
The Russian meteor was about one-third the size of the asteroid. The two bodies were on very different trajectories, scientists said.
CNN's Phil Black reported from Chelyabinsk and Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported in London.
隕石撞俄羅斯 上千人受傷
自由時報 – 2013年2月16日 上午4:26〔編譯陳維真/綜合報導〕一顆重達十噸的巨大隕石十五日在俄羅斯中部的車里亞賓斯克地區上空爆炸並墜落,強烈的爆炸聲與隨之而來的衝擊波毀損許多房屋,上千人受傷就醫,主要都是被震碎的玻璃割傷。專家說,這可能是史上最大規模的隕石傷人事件。
這塊隕石墜落在位於烏拉山脈東麓的車里亞賓斯克市附近,離莫斯科有一千五百多公里,在當地時間早上九點二十分左右,一顆巨大的火球劃過天際,在空中留下一條明顯的白色尾巴,並傳來巨大的爆炸聲響。鄰國哈薩克都能看到閃光。
隕石碎片 砸出8公尺大坑
俄羅斯科學院估計隕石重量約十噸,以時速五萬四千公里進入大氣層,然後在距離地面三十至五十公里高的地方爆炸並蒸發,但可能有隕石碎片落到地面。俄羅斯當局派出七架飛機尋找隕石下落,並有萬名人力徒步搜尋,在切巴爾庫爾市附近的湖邊發現一個八公尺寬的隕石坑。
受到衝擊波影響,車里亞賓斯克有三百多間建築物受損,數千扇窗戶被震碎,由於室外氣溫最低可達零下十八度,許多人忙著找東西阻擋冷空氣灌入室內。
大多數傷者 被碎玻璃割傷
俄羅斯內政部官員表示,一共有上千人受傷,包括兩百名兒童,大多數的傷者都是被碎玻璃割傷或有輕微腦震盪。所幸當地民眾並未遭到隕石碎片直接擊中。車里亞賓斯克市當地一處鋅工廠的屋頂倒塌,地區網路與手機斷訊、市區的辦公大樓撤離人員、學校停課一天、電影院的放映紛紛取消,俄羅斯軍隊也加入救援行動。
隕石來襲 與小行星沒關係
由於隕石墜地與小行星2012 DA 14輕掠地球的時間相近,不少人猜測是小行星導致隕石墜落地球。歐洲太空總署與美國航太總署已相繼澄清,確定小行星與隕石墜毀並無關聯。俄羅斯《消息報》網站報導,俄國防部幾天前已知道會有隕石墜落,但預估它會燃燒殆盡,因此沒有發出警報。
車里亞賓斯克除了是工業重鎮外,全球最大的核設施馬亞克(Mayak)核電廠也位在該區,儲存、處理大量核廢料,幸好並未受到隕石波及。不過輻射、化學、生物保護單位仍需加強警戒。由於爆炸距離地面幾十公里,必須檢驗大面積的土地是否受到輻射污染。
全球最大核電廠 未遭波及
英國皇家天文學會成員梅西說,這可能是目前已知傷者人數最多的隕石墜毀事件。梅西說:「這樣的事情發生在有人居住的區域,且造成這樣的傷害是前所未見。這樣的事件並不尋常。」俄羅斯激進民族主義人士季里諾夫斯基則指控,「不是隕石墜落,是美國在測試新武器。」
俄羅斯緊急事務部表示,數十塊體積較大的隕石殘骸中只有幾塊撞擊地球表面,當局將會找到這些殘骸,提供給專家進行研究。俄羅斯總統普廷命令緊急事務部部長普奇科夫立即向傷者提供援助。
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老娘真要感謝上帝,這玩意兒沒掉到台灣來。
否則以台灣人口密度這麼高,
傷亡不知會有多麼慘重?
而且我們還在過年假期耶!
老娘最愛的布魯斯威利有演過一部電影,
就是美國政府派他去小行星裝炸彈,
在行星撞上地球之前,
把炸彈引爆來拯救地球。
結果布魯斯威利壯烈的犧牲了。
好感人喔!
老娘演繹分析結果如下:
這次發生這件事,相信美國政府會多撥一些經費給 NASA,電影把美國人演的這麼了不起,結果實際上隕石都已經撞到地球了,都無法先偵測到,真是太丢美國人的臉了。
世界末日找誰救?
布魯斯威利第一名
東森新聞 – 2012年12月9日 下午3:50 傳聞根據馬雅立法預言,再過一個多禮拜,12月21號就是世界末日,那麼你要找誰來拯救世界呢?根據英國一份調查顯示,有13%的民眾很擔心世界末日,而布魯斯威利和雪歌妮薇佛,是最能夠拯救世界的救世主男女冠軍。
要是12月21號世界末日真的來臨,誰會成為救世主呢?根據英國網路電影業者針對2000名英國人所作的調查,男性第一名就是布魯斯威利,布魯斯威利在電影「世界末日」當中,率領一群鑽油井人上太空,化解行星撞地球的危機,最後還犧牲了自己的生命完成救地球的重大使命;第二名的救世英雄則是威爾史密斯,他在電影「我是傳奇」當中,飾演一名軍方病毒科學家,和感染病毒的變種人對抗,犧牲了自己的性命;而前加州州長阿諾則是排行第三,他在電影「魔鬼末日」當中,飾演一名紐約退休警察,勇敢對抗惡魔撒旦,讓人類免於世界末日的來臨。
至於女性的救世英雌排名第一的莫過於電影「異形」裡的雪歌妮薇佛,她挺身大戰外星異形,讓影迷對她百分之百信任,而在電影「史密斯任務」當中,擁有無比自信和矯健身手的安潔莉娜裘莉,則榮登第二名,鄔瑪舒曼在電影「追殺比爾」當中,大展女性版李小龍的拳腳功夫,也讓影迷好想讓她保護,成為救世天后第三名。
而在這份調查裡,描述地球極端氣候的明天過後,也成為影迷心目中最符合世界末日景象的影片,至於馬雅預言中的12月21號世界末日有57%表示知道這個傳聞,有13%的人還非常地擔憂,不過無論擔不擔心,世界末日這個話題,也倒是真的為全球電影產業製造了不少創作的題材。
布魯斯果然利害~救地球炸隕石就找他啦!^__^