Editor's
Note: Prior to this AP report, other scientists who had not been to the site
expressed doubts about whether the hole was caused by a meteorite, and whether
the fumes had anything to do with a space rock. [Story]
LIMA, Peru (AP) — A fiery meteorite
crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed on Wednesday.
But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened
200 people.
Witnesses
told reporters that a fiery ball fell from the sky and smashed into the
desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border Saturday morning.
Jose
Mechare, a scientist with Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical
Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a "rocky
meteorite,'' based on the fragments analyzed.
[However,
an expert on meteorites told SPACE.com that for a small object like this
to reach the surface, it would have to be an iron meteorite, not the stony
variety.]
He said
water in the meteorite's muddy crater boiled for maybe 10 minutes from the heat
and could have given off a vapor that sickened people, and scientists were
taking water samples.
"We
are not completely certain that there was no contamination,'' Mechare said.''
Jorge
Lopez, director of the health department in the state where the meteorite
crashed, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 200 people suffered
headaches, nausea and respiratory problems caused by "toxic'' fumes
emanating from the crater, which is some 65 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
But a team
of doctors sent to the isolated site, 3 1/2 hours travel from the state capital
of Puno, said they found no evidence the meteorite had sickened people, the Lima newspaper El Comercio reported Wednesday.
Modesto
Montoya, a member of the team, was quoted as saying doctors also had found no
sign of radioactive contamination among families living nearby, but had taken
blood samples from 19 people to be sure.
He said
fear may have provoked psychosomatic ailments.
"When
a meteorite falls, it produces horrid sounds when it makes contact with the
atmosphere,'' he told the paper. "It is as if a giant rock is being
sanded. Those sounds could have frightened them.''
Justina
Limache, 74, told El Comercio that when she heard the thunderous roar from the
sky, she abandoned her flock of alpacas and ran to her small home with her
8-year-old granddaughter. She said that after the meteorite struck, small rocks
rained down on the roof of her house for several minutes and she feared the
house was going to collapse.
Meteor
expert Ursula Marvin said that if people were sickened, "it wouldn't be
the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises.''
A meteorite
"wouldn't get much gas out of the Earth,'' said Marvin, who has studied
the objects since 1961 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. "It's a very superficial thing.''
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