[Elecraft] Meteor explosion in Chelyabinsk, Russia

[Paul VanOveren]

Many on this reflector may know Willy, UA9BA, (UK9AAN) (UP2L) He is
probably one of the most well known Russian hams..He and I have been
friends since 1977. Here is the return email I received from him regarding
his
Vladimir Umanets
Feb 16 (2 days ago)
to Paul
Hey buddy!!!

Yes we're ALL fine!

I  was at my office with window jalousie closed. The windows are looking
North.
The meteor exploded  about 20km South of Chelyabinsk and 50 km high. So the
explosion couldn't
be seen from my windows. Nevertheless it was like this - it started getting
brighter and brighter in my office
for  about 1,5 second then it got very bright for maybe ,5 second, so
bright that I almost got blind for a moment and then
the light quickly disappeard. I was asking myself what could that be and
thought of a nuclear explosion and waited for two minutes
if anything else would follow, but nothing happened. But in one more minute
this horroble very long and loud crashing sound came!
The whole building was quaking with this sound and I clearly felt that the
sound and the force came from the above. We all were
ordered to leave the building and when we came out we saw this two line
trace turning into one line trace with junction point just
above our heads and little bit to the South. This cloud was very big and it
seemed in very close proximity even though it turned out
to be over 50 km away. I looked around and found out that lots and lots of
windows were broken. The ambulances started coming in
and I saw many people were injured and bleeding some couldn't walk by
themselves. It was a very frustrating expirience and many
people  are still under shock. Even I go over and over those moments and
don't feel normal, still kind of excited or something.
I don't know what frightened me more the spectacular light, or the hit
wave, or those bleeding people. All this happened on Friday
morning  at the plant I work for. The plant loss is estimated at 85 000 000
R which is en equivl. of 1.5 month salory of our 1900
employees. The plant lost about 25000 sq.m of windows, over 50 doors, lots
of equipment (measuring, PCs and so on).
This was the day I will remember till my last day.  My family is OK. My
house (42 km South of Chelyabinsk) lost its windows and that was
the only damage to my family. By the way, this explosion woke up my 81 year
old mother with its spectacular light. She lives in Troitsk
136 km South of Chelyabinsk. The hit wave came 6+ minutes later and was
very strong as mother said.

That's how it was. I now feel like I trust in God more and more...

73's & GL, Willy UA9BA



Пятница, 15 февраля 2013, 21:37 -05:00 от Paul VanOveren <paul at nf8j.com>:
status after the Meteor hitting near his home/work sites. Sorry for the
bandwidth.


-- 
Paul VanOveren
5911 Snow Av
Alto, Mi 49302
(616) 868-7149