Bright objects, apparently debris from a meteorite, streaked through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across a vast swath of territory. Around 500 people were reported to have been injured, most from breaking glass.
Emergency officials had reported no deaths by Friday afternoon but said that 14 people had been hospitalized. Russian experts believe the blast was caused by a 10-ton meteor known as a bolide, which created a powerful shock wave when it reached the earth’s atmosphere, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement. Scientists believe the meteor exploded 20 to 30 miles above the earth’s surface and that fragments may have reached the ground, the statement said.
Yelena Smirnykh, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, told Ekho Moskvy radio that she believed the meteorite broke apart and fell in several places. Another government expert, who spoke to Moscow FM radio station, said he believed it may have been a bolide, a type of fireball meteor that explodes in the earth’s atmosphere because of its composition or angle of entry and can be observed from the ground.
However, the governor of the Chelyabinsk district reported that a search team had found an impact crater on the outskirts of a city about 50 miles west of Chelyabinsk, which would indicate the meteor did not explode in the atmosphere. An official from the Interior Ministry told Interfax that three large pieces of meteorite debris had been retrieved in the area and that 10,000 police officers are searching for more.
A small asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, is expected to pass close to earth later on Friday, NASA reported on its Web site. It was not clear whether the meteorite event in the Ural Mountains was in any way related. Aleksandr Y. Dudorov, a physicist at Chelyabinsk State University, said it is possible that the meteorite may have been flying alongside the asteroid.
“What we witnessed today may have been the precursor of that asteroid,” said Mr. Dudorov in a telephone interview.
