A reported 200 bars of gold and other precious metals have scattered across an airport runway in Russia after a cargo plane door broke off upon takeoff.
Strong winds blew off the Nimbus Airline An-12 cargo plane door upon takeoff from Yakutsk Airport, airport officials told Interfax on Thursday.
After the incident, the plane crew made an emergency landing in a village airport some 12 kilometers from Yakutsk.
The local YakutiaMedia news website cited witnesses as saying that they spotted gold bars, as well as diamonds and bars of platinum across the runway.
Police arrived to the scene and cordoned off the area surrounding the runway, YakutiaMedia reported.
At least 172 bars of gold weighing 3.4 tons have been recovered from the area, an Interior Ministry source told the state-run TASS news agency.
The Mash news Telegram channel calculated the value of the gold to be 21.6 billion rubles ($378 million).
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