Meteor explodes sensationally over Russia's Ural mountains, powers panic, injures 500
urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 10,000 metres (32,800 feet).
The U.S. space agency NASA has said an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 metres in diameter, would have an encounter with Earth closer than any asteroid since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.
Television, weather and communications satellites fly about 500 miles (800 km) higher. The moon is 14 times farther away.
Meteor explodes over Russia, injures 400
(AP) A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains today morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 400 people, many of them hurt by broken glass.
"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometers east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region.
"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.
Fragments of the meteor fell in a thinly populated area of the Chelyabinsk region, the Emergency Ministry said in a statement.
Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said more than 400 people had sought medical treatment after the blasts, and at least three had been hospitalized in serious condition.
Many of the injuries were from glass broken by the explosions.
Kolsenikov
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