Asteroid crashes in Inner Mongolia

(ECNS) -- An asteroid crashed into the Xilin Gol Grassland in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region on November 5, releasing energy equivalent to 500 tons of TNT.

Measuring between 3 and 4 meters in diameter, the asteroid has not caused a devastating impact and there's no need to panic, Xinhua Daily reported.

Wang Sichao, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has asked for more information from the public, as there have been no eyewitness reports.

Wang said it is the second asteroid crash since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

On March 8, 1976, an asteroid exploded in the sky over Jinzhu township in northeast China's Jilin province.

If an asteroid measuring 2 kilometers in diameter crashes to Earth, it can destroy an area of one million square kilometers, endangering nearly a quarter of the world's population and sharply reducing global food production. Asteroids of that size strike Earth every 500,000 years on average.