NationStates Jolt Archive

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070918/sc_afp/peruhealthoffbeat

Be afraid... be very afraid. Oh... and if you start having strange dreams, be afraid'er.

Is it possibly there maybe be extraterrestrial bacteria on the meteor? Or it is just poisoning?

Since the Colour animated local flora as it leeched life from the region before returning to space, I'll take a wait and see attitude before panicking

*evacuates planet*

This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just a colour out of space - a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; The Colour Out of Space from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extracosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes. I doubt very much if Ammi consciously lied to me, and I do not think his tale was all a freak of madness as the townsfolk had forewarned. Something terrible came to the hills and valleys on that meteor, and something terrible - though I know not in what proportion - still remains
/runs for the hills

Is it possibly there maybe be extraterrestrial bacteria on the meteor? Or it is just poisoning?

More likely poisoning, airborne illness-causing bacteria generally needs stuffy, enclosed spaces to cause problems. I suppose it's possible that there's a virus, but then, the "strange odour" makes it sound more likely to be a chemical. When's the last time you smelled the flu?

Strange odour? I bet that meteorite was a full of sulphur.

Strange odour? I bet that meteorite was a full of sulphur oxide.

Yeah, I think that's more than likely, considering the boiling water and charred fragments.

EDIT: Sulphur dioxide is expelled by volcanoes and hot springs on earth, smells of burning sulphur, and causes breathing problems because it irritates the lining of the lungs. The only treatment the article describes is giving oxygen - it seems to fit well.

I for one welcome our new Great Old One overlords.
Ia Ia Cthulhu fthagn!

I changed my mind. I reckon a volcano is to blame. Sabancaya was active as recently as 2003. It's in the approximate location of the Peruvian village. So I think that tectonic activity has resulted in releasing volcanic gases into the atmosphere. Hydrogen sulphide is highly explosive, highly toxic and in trace amounts is responsible for the smell of farts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabancaya

edit: It could be sulphur dioxide too. I dunno, not sure I care anymore.

Or was it an exceptionally hot year there?