Latvia plans to set a fine of $10,000 for false calls of emergencies services, including calls of police and fire fighters, the country's interior minister said. The Interior Ministry decided to increase the fine after the hoax meteorite strike staged in the Baltic state by a Latvian mobile operator, Tele2, in October last year.
After the meteorite publicity stunt, the telecommunication company Tele2 has been receiving many phone calls from private individuals as well as enterprises wishing to have Tele2 as their mobile phone operator, as the company informed the business information portal "Nozare.lv". Read more
Meteorite stunt backfires on Swedish telecoms firm A publicity campaign involving a hoax meteorite in Latvia has backfired spectacularly with the Swedish TELE2 telecoms company behind the stunt losing a government contract.
The alert was first raised on Sunday evening by Ancis Steinbergs, who said that he had been out filming for a university project with his girlfriend and a fellow undergraduate. He was refusing to answer his telephone tonight to answer questions about the experts assessments. Source
Ed ~ Experts now have cast real doubts on the claim that a meteorite had impacted in northern Latvia. Ilgonis Vilks from the University of Latvia has reservations that the crater had been caused by a meteorite, due to the fact that the locals did not hear any load explosions. And it seems that the flames observed were caused by molten metal being poured into the crater - in short it was an elaborate hoax.
One geologist said he believed the crater was a hoax. Dainis Ozols, who examined the hole in daylight, said he believed someone had dug the crater in order to make it look like it had been created by an object from space. Source
"My first impression is that, yes, it was a meteorite. All the evidence suggests this when compared to pictures of real meteorite craters" - Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center.
Questa notte un meteorite si è schiantato al suolo. E' accaduto nella cittadina lettone di Mazsalaca, vicina al confine con l'Estonia e a 170 km da Riga. See more (Italian)
Ed ~ Evidence from this site shows that it is not an impact crater.