Russian meteor strike compared to 30 Hiroshima bomb explosion

Last Updated: Sun, Feb 17, 2013 06:27 hrs

London: The meteor that exploded in Russia on Friday had an impact 30 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, NASA scientists have said.

The 55 foot wide rock, said by NASA to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, lit up the sky above the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times.

NASA estimated that the energy released as the meteor's disintegrated in the atmosphere was 500 kilotons, around 30 times the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the Telegraph reported.



Divers were searching the Chelyabinsk region's frozen Lake Chebarkul for a fragment of the meteorite.





Russian scientists were initially reported to have estimated its mass to be around 10 tonnes, but NASA later claimed it was considerably larger with a mass closer to 10,000 tonnes. 

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