Huge fireball ‘turns night into day’ over Siberia

A huge fireball burned across the sky in Siberia – turning night into day for thousands of locals as what’s thought to be a meteor burnt up in Earth’s atmosphere.

The meteor passed over the southern Siberian republic of Khakassia on Tuesday evening earlier this week.

The meteor is not thought to have hit the surface – and some eyewitness reports suggest it exploded during its descent.

‘”I went for a walk with my friends. We stopped by the shop and my friend screamed when she saw a bright flash, and then there was an explosion,’ said a local woman in an interview with The Siberian Times.

‘All the car alarms immediately went off. We were so scared. My father said windows were vibrating.’

‘At 6:50pm in southern districts of Khakassia republic, a shining object was visible in the sky,’ the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement to media.

Local experts said that the meteorite was significantly smaller than the one which exploded over Chelyabinsk in 2013.

During the 2013 Chelyabinsk event, an asteroid, with a mass of about 12 000 tonnes and a size of 60 feet, hit the upper atmosphere at a about 12 miles per second, exploding with the energy of 480 kilotons of TNT at an altitude of 16 to 18 miles.

More than 1500 people were injured and 7300 buildings damaged by the intense overpressure generated by the shockwave at Earth’s surface.