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	For comparison, the atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 had the power of 15 kilotons.</div>
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	The impacts were monitored by a network of sensors operated by the international Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation to detect nuclear detonations.</div>
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	The Earth is continuously colliding with fragments of asteroids, the California-based B612 Foundation noted. It said that most of them exploded too high in the atmosphere to do serious damage on theground.</div>
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	In addition to the 600-kiloton impact in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, there have been asteroid impacts greater than 20 kilotons in Indonesia, the Southern Ocean and Mediterranean Sea since the turn of the millennium.</div>
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	&quot;While most large asteroids with the potential to destroy an entire country or continent have been detected, fewer than 10,000 of the more than 1 million dangerous asteroids with the potential to destroy an entire major metropolitan area have been found by all existing space or terrestrially operated observatories,&quot; said former US astronaut Ed Lu, the B612 Foundation&#39;s CEO and co-founder.</div>
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	DPA</div>

Large asteroid impacts on Earth not rare, group warns

Seattle - The Earth was struck by 26 asteroids ranging in explosive power from 1 to 600 kilotons of TNT between 2000 and 2013,says a private US foundation which is soliciting donations for a space mission to protect the planet from such impacts.