"There was panic. Guy did not know what had just happened. Everybody immediately surrounding their homes to check whether they and their home was fine," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk.

He admitted that he could see a bright light in the sky before he heard a loud roar. "We looked like a huge explosion of light and then we went out to see what it was, and we heard a very loud rumbling noise," he said.

Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a statement, meteor fragments had fallen in the city of Chelyabinsk.

Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said more than 400 people were injured in the incident, and at least three were hospitalized in serious condition. Many of them suffered injuries caused by broken glass.

According to reports, the meteorite fell less than a day before the asteroid passed within 2012 DA14 are quite close to Earth about 28,000 miles. However, the relationship between the two is unknown asteroid.