A telephone company on Monday said it had dreamed up a purported meteorite strike in Latvia as a publicity stunt.
A spokesman for the firm was quoted by the Leta news agency as saying the hoax had been meant to “inspire Latvia” and give the world a break from economic crisis headlines and news about the Baltic state’s financial woes.
He said the firm would reimburse the cash-strapped emergency services who had rushed to the scene.
PHOTO: AFP
But Latvian Interior Minister Linda Murniece dubbed the stunt a “cynical mockery.”
Latvian authorities said the cost of calling out firefighters, police, the army and scientists was at least 2,000 lats (US$4,250).
Tele2 will be billed by the state for staging the meteorite strike, Murniece said yesterday morning.
Speaking on TV channel LNT, a furious Murniece said Tele2 had humiliated the Latvia’s emergency services.
“They will be presented with a bill and the police will decide whether further criminal action should be taken,” Murniece said.
It remained unclear whether any charges would be filed against the company for wasting emergency services’ time and money, following its admission.
Earlier on Monday, police had warned that they would launch a criminal investigation if the alleged meteorite strike near the small northern Latvian town of Mazsalaca was a hoax.
Inga Vetere, a spokeswoman for the Baltic nation’s State Fire and Rescue Service had earlier said firefighters were called out at 5:30pm on Sunday by residents who said something had fallen from the sky into the ground and set a field on fire.
“We concluded that the impact must have come from the air and this is why we believe it could have been a meteorite,” she said.
But experts who rushed to the scene cast doubt on claims that the 10m wide crater had been caused by a meteorite, noting spade marks, and suggested that the flames may have been caused by molten metal being poured into the crater.
The purported meteorite hit just a day before the Latvian government approved an austerity budget for next year.
As it struggles to keep to the terms of an international rescue package for its floundering economy, Latvia has repeatedly pared public services to the bone and slashed state-sector wages, with emergency services among those hardest hit by the belt-tightening drive.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese