Meteor Over Russia Hits Internet with 7.7 Million Video Views
Early this morning in Russia, a meteor made landfall over the Ural city of Chelyabinsk, unleashing a shock wave that smashed windows, collapsed roofs and buildings and injured more than 980 people.
Almost immediately after the meteor hit, videos began popping up of Russians documenting the meteor streaking across the sky, lighting up the landscape, and setting off a powerful shockwave and exploding. It's an incredible and terrifying event to watch.
The meteor explosion has already driven over 7.7 million True Reach views – the total video views across all the clips related to the event – a truly staggering amount in just a few hours. We've already identified close to 100 videos uploaded of the event, with the first video hitting the web shortly before Thursday night at 11:00 EST. Keep in mind that these numbers are a snapshot in time and that as this story grows and is highlighted across the major media networks in the following hours these numbers will likely skyrocket.
To help provide some context for such a rare event, we compared the meteor to another rare event: the east coast earthquake of August 2011. Just like the meteor, videos of the earthquake spread across the web quickly, ultimately producing 2.8 million True Reach views the day after. The Russian meteor already has more than twice that amount in less than 15 hours.
Have you watched any videos of the meteor yet? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
---
UPDATE: As of 5:00 PM EST, the Russian Meteor has driven over 21.5 million True Reach views. There are over 270 clips related to the event and more than 35,000 comments so far.
