Scores ill after 'meteor' crashlands

Updated 21.17 Wed Sep 19 2007

Keywords: Peru, meteorite

More than a 100 people have reported suffering headaches and nausea after a suspected meteorite landed in a remote part of Peru.

The object left a hole 20 metres wide and seven metres deep in the ground in the Puno region, near the town of Carancas.

Eyewitnesses have reported seeing a fiery ball falling from the sky and smashing into the desolate Andean plain

Eyewitnesses have reported seeing a fiery ball falling from the sky and smashing into the desolate Andean plain near the Bolivian border.

Experts are now on their way to the site to assess the crater, which is reported to be giving off toxic fumes. Local Indians are concerned their water supply is contaminated.

A local police officer said: "Doctors at the health centre of Desaguadero near the border with Bolivia said people should avoid contact with small fragments of the meteorite."

But meteor expert Ursula Marvin said the meteor would not be the cause, but rather the dust it raised on impact.

Hernando Tavera, a geophysicist at Peru's Geophysics Institute, said similar cases were reported in 2002 and 2004 elsewhere in southern Peru, but never confirmed as meteorites.