This sounds bad, real bad.

[Rexmons]

Link

LIMA (AFP) - 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

[Flint]

Sounds like it unearthed a massive carbon dioxide deposit, like in Cameroon.

...large quantities can build up...and may later be forced out as the result of...underground disturbance...

That, or Creepshow:

[Elspode]

Or...

[tw]

Matians are doing the same thing to us that we did to them. We used two different measurments systems (English and Metric) to design a defective space craft. It slammed into Mars. Martians apparently have the same problem.

[Shawnee123]

More on this, from here.

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 who reached the isolated site said Wednesday they found no evidence the meteorite had sickened people.

Doctors told an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the site that they had found no sign of radioactive contamination among families living nearby. But they said they had taken samples of blood, urine and hair to analyze.

Peasants living near the crater said they had smelled a sulfurous odor for at least an hour after the meteorite struck and that it had provoked upset stomachs and headaches.

But Jose Isisuka, a geologist for the institute who was studying the crater, said he doubted the reports of a sulfurous smell.

Modesto Montoya, a member of the medical team, was quoted by Lima daily El Comercio as saying 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."

To get all conspiracy theory, I'd reckon it's a big cover-up. You aren't hearing much about the little green men who crawled out of the "meteorite" either, are you?

[Mockingbird]

It's just the Andromeda strain. Let's get some bio suits down there and enjoy ourselves.

[robsterman1]

Originally Posted by Mockingbird

It's just the Andromeda strain. Let's get some bio suits down there and enjoy ourselves.

Or will the Peruvian govt just cover it up?

Smells of a conspiracy here

[BigV]

This sounds injured, injured bad.