Fireball over Russia

[lechrus2]

Based on readings from the sensor network built to detect nuclear blasts, the meteor released the energy equivalent of 500 kilotons of TNT, which is about 30X the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

[lechrus2]

Chelyabinsk, sounds like a lovely place to live

Formerly a production centre for weapons-grade plutonium, it now hosts a giant nuclear fuel reprocessing centre with a terrifying safety record.

An estimated 3.6 million people live in the region whose capital is also called Chelyabinsk. The nuclear plant, which no longer manufactures plutonium, suffered at least three serious accidents in the Soviet era irradiating a huge swath of the region’s 33,900 square miles and an estimated half a million people.

The Soviet authorities hushed up the accidents including a giant 1957 explosion whose effects scientists have likened to the fallout from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Many of the area’s rivers and lakes remain choked with nuclear waste, and many of its inhabitants say they have contracted cancer and radiation-related sicknesses as a result of its appalling nuclear legacy.

The authorities routinely dumped nuclear waste into its rivers and at least 10,000 people have had to be relocated for health reasons. A group of American scientists once claimed it was the most polluted place on earth.