Russia Meteorite Video, Photos Show Explosion & Aftermath: Country Reacts And Begins Recovery Efforts

Russian officials are now assessing the damage and attempting to locate the meteorite that exploded over the Chelyabinsk region of the country.

The explosion in the densely populated Urals injured over a thousand people, caused millions of dollars in damage and disrupted phone and internet communications.

Scientists, aside from investigating the latest meteorite strike, are looking toward the future and say money must be invested in research so these types of celestial events can be more easily detected and residents can be warned ahead of impact.

"When a small piece of rock would fall on the Earth 100 years ago it could have caused minimal damage and would have stayed largely undetected, but Friday's accident fully demonstrated how vulnerable the technological civilization of today has become," said Vladimir Lipunov, head of the Space Monitoring Laboratory with Moscow State University.

"It is high time Russia should start heavily investing in building an advanced space danger monitoring and warning system and above that a system capable of destroying such super bombs falling on us from the skies.

Divers were sent to a lake 60 miles west of Chelyabinsk to locate the space object that exploded over the region, but could not find any trace of it, according to Interfax.

Lipunov sees the meteorite strike as an event that can be learned from.

"We should be thankful to fate that this meteor in fact was a blessing in disguise and instead of destroying a significant part of Russia with quite dire consequences to the rest of the world, it sent us a clear warning signal by simply blowing up a bunch of windows and lightly injuring over 1,000 people," he said.

Lipunov also said that he is working on a presentation that will illustrate the meteor strike and propose ideas on how to develop an alert system for the future.

"On Monday I will present an objective picture of the Urals event and proposals on possibilities to register the danger of the Earth's coming close to 'aliens' and prevent it in the future," he said.

Municipal workers, emergency crews and volunteers have already started to repair the thousands of windows that were broken in the explosion.

Material damage to the region is estimated to be over $33 million, while 30 percent of about 100 square meters of broken windows have been replaced, according to Regional Gov. Mikhail Yurevich.

(SOURCE)