Missile hits Vladivostok apartment block during Russian naval display

News agencies said the missile hit a nine-storey block of flats in Leonova Street, but that noone was injured. Other reports said the missile fell a meter short of the building, leaving a wide crater on the ground and breaking the windows of the ground floor apartments.

The Navy confirmed that one of the anti-submarine missiles fired during the parade rehearsal took the wrong course and hit a residential building. Officials underlined, however, that there had been no threat to the population as the projectile was a blank.

Officials said they were studying the missile launcher to find out how the missile could have deviated from its intended direction.

Russian Navy Day, celebrated with a parade, is on July 26.

This is the second incident of the kind this summer. In late May, a Russian warship accidentally fired over ten rockets at a little Russian village near St. Petersburg during military exercises.