A meteor shower rained down on central Russia on Friday, sparking panic as the hurtling space debris exploded in the air, blowing out windows and leaving hundreds injured.

Residents heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shock wave as they went to work in Chelyabinsk, an industrial city 1500 kilometres east of Moscow.



''I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day,'' said Viktor Prokofiev, a 36-year-old resident of Yekaterinburg. ''I felt like I was blinded by headlights.''



''I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend,'' said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name.

''Then there was a flash, and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shock wave that smashed windows.''

A wall was damaged at the nearby Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but there was no environmental threat, a plant spokeswoman said. A spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy state corporation, said its operations remained unaffected. Agencies