This picture taken by Pavel Berlet shows office damage in the city of Chelyabinsk.
This picture shows damage to a car garage in Chelyabinsk. Photo courtesy Pavel Berlet.
This picture shows exterior window damage to a building in Chelyabinsk. Photo courtesy Pavel Berlet.
This picture shows window damage to a store in Chelyabinsk. Photo courtesy Pavel Berley. Pavel Berlet is a university professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He lives in Chelyabinsk, Russia...where early on Friday morning a meteor pierced the sky above the city and triggered a massive sonic boom as it traversed the sky.
"I didn't see it, only felt the shock wave. It was scary. Like an earthquake." Pavel told KSFY News during an interview conducted over Twitter at 1:45AM on Friday morning.
"It fell right here." Berlet said, referencing the city of Chelyabinsk....where he lives. "I was sacred at first. Now everything is A-Okay. People are rushing home from work to check on their apartments."
Photographs from the news organization Russia Today show the meteor may have hit a zinc factory in the city of Chelyabinsk. We asked Pavel what he knew about that. "Yes it hit the Zinc Plant warehouse. Not sure if meteor of shockwave tho." Several pieces of video and photographs from the region indicate the shock wave generated by the meteor blew out windows on buildings and blew it the door of a warehouse in the city. "Lots of broken glass." Berlet told KSFY News.
Initial reports from Russian media were that 100 people have been injured in connection with this meteor strike. Pavel was able to shed some light on that situation as well. "My mother is a doctor at one of the hospitals, she just told me about over 130 people taken into their hospital." And he continued by adding, "Mostly cuts, bruises, piercing wounds from glass, lots of children with concussions, eye trauma and barotrauma."
As for Pavel himself, he tells KSFY News that he lost two windows in his apartment from the sonic boom generated by the meteor strike.
We asked Pavel how local emergency authorities in the area are responding to this event. Pavel said, "...the local administration told everyone to pick up kids from school/pre-school, and stay at home."
