Tornado in large Russian city ‘first ever’

A tornado that struck the eastern Russian city of Blagoveshchensk on Sunday night was the country’s first ever "city tornado," a meteorologist said. The 13-minute twister that killed one person and injured dozens of others in Blagoveshchensk, a city of around 220,000 on the border with China, was the first tornado to hit a major Russian city, meteorologist Alexander Golubev told RIA Novosti.   Golubev said the likelihood of a tornado hitting Blagoveshchensk again any time soon was "minimal." In 1984, a tornado hit the outskirts of Ivanovo in central Russia, but only a few farm utility buildings were damaged. Golubev said waterspouts are somewhat common near the Black Sea cities of Anapa and Tuapse, but once they hit land they die out. Officials said more than 120 military cadets were involved in the cleanup efforts after Sunday’s tornado, which caused an estimated 80 million rubles ($2.9 million) in damage.