The descent of the meteor, visible as a brilliant superbolide in the morning sky, caused a series of shock waves that shattered windows, damaged approximately 7,200 buildings and left 1,491 people injured.

[10][11] The asteroid had an approximate size of 18 m (59 ft) and a mass of about 9,100 t (10,000 short tons) before it entered the denser parts of Earth's atmosphere and started to ablate.

[15][16] Scientists collected 53 samples from near a 6-metre-wide (20 ft) hole in the ice of Lake Chebarkul, thought to be the result of a single meteorite fragment impact.

An operation to recover it from the lake began on 10 September 2013,[18] and concluded on 16 October 2013, with the raising of the rock with the mass of 540 kg (1,190 lb).

In the aftermath of the superbolide air burst, a large number of small meteorite fragments fell on areas west of Chelyabinsk, including Deputatskoye, generally at terminal velocity, about the speed of a piece of gravel dropped from a skyscraper.