World Scene

Meteorite stolen from Siberian city

MOSCOW — Russian police combed the northern Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk yesterday for a 3-ton meteorite that disappeared from under the nose of its keepers.

The giant rock was stolen from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908, Interfax news agency reported.

Foundation Director Yury Lavbin brought the rock to Krasnoyarsk after a 2004 expedition to the site of the “Tunguska event,” a mysterious aerial explosion in Siberia in 1908 that was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

TAHITI

Plane with 20 crashes in Pacific

PAPEETE — A small airplane plunged into the sea moments after taking off from the French Polynesian resort island of Moorea, apparently killing all 20 persons aboard in the territory’s worst plane crash, officials said yesterday.

Two Australian tourists, two European Union officials, and a group of Polynesian environmental and tourism officials were among those aboard the Twin Otter DHC-6 turboprop when it crashed Thursday, according to the territory’s High Commission, which represents France in French Polynesia.

From wire dispatches and staff reports