Zeldzaam krachtige tornado treft Russische stad

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Zeldzame tornado verwoest deel Russische stad
Autoriteiten in het Russische Verre Oosten hebben de noodtoestand afgekondigd in het gebied waar een krachtige en zeldzame tornado doorheen trok: ��n persoon kwam om het leven en tientallen raakten gewond.

Een tornado trok dwars door de stad Blagovesjtsjensk op zondagavond, waarbij ook veel schade aan gebouwen ontstond: van bijna honderd huizen werden daken afgerukt en 150 auto's raakten beschadigd, ook stroomverbindingen werden vernield.

Anton Ivlev, woordvoerder van de gouverneur van de Amoer regio, vertelde de Russische persbureaus op maandag dat de provincie de noodtoestand afkondigde om allerlei herstelwerkzaamheden versneld te kunnen uitvoeren.

Autoriteiten in de Amoer regio schatten de schade op 80 miljoen roebel (3 miljoen euro).
Tornado's zijn uiterst zeldzaam in Rusland, en lokale meteorologen zeggen dat het de eerste tornado is die ooit door een Russische stad in deze omgeving trok, voor zover men kon nagaan in de weerhistorische gegevens.

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Rare tornado wrecks havoc in Russian city

A rare tornado touched down in Russia last night (July 31), according to news reports.

The tornado hit Blagoveshchensk, a city of about 200,000 in eastern Russia near the China border.
The rare tornado in Russia is a perfect example of how tornadoes are not exclusive to Tornado Alley. The nighttime twister killed one person and injured 12 others, reported RIA Novosti. The tornado was the first to hit a Russian city, one meteorologist told the news agency.

The twister lasted 13 minutes and caused a reported 80 million rubles ($2.9 million) in damage.
Tornadoes have touched down in every continent except Antarctica. They can occur wherever cold, dry air hits moist, warm air high in the atmosphere. Most of the Earth's tornadoes occur in the hotbed known as Tornado Alley, but the United Kingdom reports the most tornadoes by land area, given its small size.

In Tornado Alley, thousands of twisters touch down here every year because of its geography. The alley is bordered by the Dakotas to the north, the Gulf Coast to the south, the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Appalachian Mountains to the east.

Here, warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with the cool, dry Arctic air, fueling the massive supercell storms capable of spawning tornadoes.

Similar conditions can occur in the region where the Russian twister formed, downstream from the Himalayas and in the Gobi Desert, but, historically, reports have been rare, said Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

The Russian twister was reportedly a mile wide and rated an EF-5, the highest rating on the tornado damage scale, reported the Daily Mail. Brooks said that caution is needed with the rating given differences in how such things would be determined in different locations.

So far in 2011, six EF-5 tornadoes have hit the United States, according to the Storm Prediction Center.

"They're rare elsewhere, but not completely unheard of," Brooks told OurAmazingPlanet.

A few EF-5 tornadoes have been reported in France and one in Italy. A tornado in Ivanovo, north of Moscow, in 1984 was also given the highest rating.

Смерч в городе Благовещенске, 31 июля 2011 (exclusive video)