Work is underway to replace acres of windows shattered by the enormous explosion from a meteor, which crashed to earth in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

Russian authorities have reportedly sent a 20,000-strong team to the Ural Mountains to help with the rescue and clean-up operation after a meteor struck the area.

A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia’s Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb yesterday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people.

A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia’s Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb today, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people.

A similar-sized meteor to the one that exploded in the sky over Russia today would cause “significant fatalities” if it hit Earth.

A meteor has streaked across the sky above Russia’s Ural Mountains this morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 400 people, many of them hurt by broken glass.

TWO Russian families have each won €72,000 in compensation from a maternity home that accidently switched their 12-year-old daughters at birth.

Two Russian families have won €72,000 compensation each from a maternity home that accidentally switched their 12-year old daughters at birth.

FOUR people were ordered to remain in jail yesterday pending an investigation into a nightclub fire that killed at least 112 people in Russia’s worst blaze in decades, investigators said.

Four people were held in jail tonight pending an investigation into a nightclub fire that killed at least 112 people in Russia’s worst blaze in decades, investigators said.

An explosion and fire apparently caused by pyrotechnics tore through a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm early today, killing 101 people, according to news reports.

An explosion apparently caused by pyrotechnics tore through a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm, killing more than 100 people, according to emergency officials quoted by state television.

India’s prime minister today insisted it is time for peace with neighbouring Pakistan, but warned that relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals were still “under considerable stress” in the wake of last year’s terror attack in Mumbai.

The last czar and his murdered family were victims of political repression, a Russian Supreme Court appeals panel declared today.

The pilot of the Aeroflot jet that crashed, killing all 88 people on board, ignored commands from air traffic controllers, probably contributing to Russia’s worst air disaster in two years, according to reports.

RUSSIAN investigators yesterday sifted through the wreckage of an Aeroflot jet that crashed in the Ural mountains killing all 88 people on board, as the region marked a day of mourning.

An engine fire appeared today to be the cause of a Russian jet crash that killed all 88 people on board.

A passenger jet travelling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm crashed while preparing to land early today, killing all 88 people aboard, officials said.

A passenger jet travelling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm crashed as it was preparing to land early today, killing all 88 people aboard, officials said.

Scientists today confirmed they have found the remains of the heir to Russia’s last tsar and his sister.

Investigators today found no evidence of a mechanical defect as the cause of the British Airways Boeing 777 crash-landing at Heathrow airport last month.

There is a “high probability” that bones found recently in Russia belonged to a daughter and son of the last czar, an official said today.

The widow of poisoned former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko says he was not working for British intelligence, as his alleged killer claims.

President Vladimir Putin today emphasised Moscow’s opposition to the planned US deployment of missile defence systems in central Europe and said Russia would take measures in response.

A former Russian security service officer said in a letter from prison released today that he had warned former spy Alexander Litvinenko years ago that the KGB’s main successor agency had formed a death squadron to kill him and other Kremlin foes.

A fire at Russia’s largest steel mill killed at least five people, injured eight and left several others missing, an emergency official said today.

LAST SUMMER I got a phone call from a man who lives locally to say that he had picked up the body of an animal that had been killed on the road and he was having an argument with some of his friends about its identification.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Defence Ministry in Moscow today to register their anger over a bullying incident in which a conscript was so badly injured that his legs and genitals had to be amputated.

MILITARY prosecutors and top officers promised a thorough investigation into one of the most brutal bullying incidents reported in the Russian military in years - a soldier who underwent several amputations because of beatings and torture by fellow servicemen.

Military prosecutors and top officers promised a thorough investigation into one of the most brutal bullying incidents to be reported in the Russian military in years – a soldier who underwent several amputations because of beatings and torture by fellow servicemen.

A persistent spell of extreme cold has caused more deaths among Russians stranded on frigid streets but failed to freeze the spirits of thousands who plunged into ice water for an annual ritual marking a Russian Orthodox Christian holiday.

President Vladimir Putin today called on Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to develop a plan to prevent bird flu in Russia, Russian news agencies reported.

A concrete roof over a swimming pool in the Ural Mountains region collapsed today, killing at least three people – including two children – and injuring 11 others, an emergency official said.

PRELIMINARY tests on fowl from a region south of Moscow where hundreds of birds died suddenly detected the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Russia’s Agriculture Ministry said yesterday.

EUROPEAN UNION officials helping investigate an outbreak of bird flu in a western Turkish village said yesterday there was no indication the virus here, which has killed some 1,800 fowl, posed a risk to humans.

Authorities were culling thousands of domestic birds in Romania today to prevent the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu that has decimated flocks and killed dozens of people in Asia.

TURKISH officials carried out medical tests on nine people living in a neighbourhood where 40 pigeons reportedly died, but released the nine from medical observation yesterday after determining it was unlikely they had bird flu.

Turkish officials carried out medical tests on nine people living in a neighbourhood where 40 pigeons reportedly died, but released the nine from medical observation today after determining it was unlikely they had bird flu.

RUSSIA cordoned off roads and slaughtered hundreds of birds yesterday in a bid to contain the advance of a bird flu epidemic toward Europe.

Racism and xenophobia are growing at an alarming rate in Russia, rights groups said today, problems fuelled by economic hardship and what they say is the government’s failure to come up with a plan for reducing ethnic tensions.

Russian police freed unharmed three hostages being held by twin brothers who deserted from their army unit with assault rifles today.

THE Russian man suspected of killing a Swiss air controller to avenge the death of his family in a mid-air collision was grief-stricken to the point of madness but did not publicly voice any threats, people who knew him said yesterday.

Grieving relatives and friends gathered in the Ural Mountains city of Ufa today to pay their final respects to 28 people killed in last week’s air crash over Germany.

SWITZERLAND conceded yesterday that its air traffic controllers were at least partly to blame for the midair collision of a Russian charter jet and a cargo plane which killed 71 people.