An unmanned Russian rocket has crashed shortly after takeoff near the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan, spilling toxic propellant around the crash site.
The Proton-M rocket, carrying three navigation satellites, can be seen veering off course soon after takeoff at 02:38 GMT, before smoke started to come from the boosters and it crashed back to earth with a large explosion in the video filmed by Rossiya-24.
Launch personnel were in bunkers when the rocket launched, and so any injuries were avoided.
The crash did, however, spill around 170 tonnes of the toxic propellant heptyl, which was ignited upon impact. The area is sparsely populated but Kazakhstan’s government are holding an emergency meeting later today to determine to determine whether to evacuate nearby towns and how deal with the clean up.
The Proton missile was originally developed 40 years ago during the cold war as an intercontinental ballistic missile that could carry a nuclear warhead, but was never used in combat. It has since been developed through a number of iterations into the proton-M rocket which is regularly used to launch satellites into space.
