Mystery Illness after meteor strike

[gunsmith]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070918032309.snshi71r&show_article=1

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.

[gunsmith]

I've never heard of anyone getting ill from a meteorite, something strange is going on.

[Perd Hapley]

Garden-variety dust?  Anthrax in the soil?  Or, the villagers could be from Krypton. 

[The Viking]

We will see zombies soon enough.

[Ned Hamford]

Well, no mass blindness and man eating plants.
No worries

[LadySmith]

We will see zombies soon enough.

I watched Undead last weekend. Maybe I shouldn't laugh.

[Standing Wolf]

It's Bush's fault.

[client32]

It's Bush's fault.

Why are we going to war in the Andes?  Is there oil there?

[Manedwolf]

[MillCreek]

The Andromeda Strain was the first thing I thought of, too.  I wonder if that is out on DVD these days?  I always liked that movie.

[Manedwolf]

Ever read the H.P. Lovecraft story The Colour Out of Space? 

A meteorite lands near and infects a farmer's well, draining the life out of everything around until it becomes gray and crumbles. Whatever it is is buried in the fetid muck at the bottom and causes the trees to sway when there's no wind, with a faint, unearthly glow...

[MechAg94]

Radioactive material? 

[Gewehr98]

Night of the Comet   

[Nick1911]

Radioactive material? 

This was my thought as well

[gunsmith]

I wouldn't think that radioactive material would have any oder, oop's
gotta go.
The puppet masters are calling me, yall keep your clothes on...mmmkay

[Brad Johnson]

Space debris with some kind of toxic fluid left in it that vaporized on impact.  The shuttle is full of stuff like that - toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, or all three.  That's why they park it way out by itself for a while after landing.  It takes several hours to remove the nastiness (or as much as possible) before they can move the vehicle.

Brad

[Sergeant Bob]

Space debris with some kind of toxic fluid left in it that vaporized on impact.  The shuttle is full of stuff like that - toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, or all three.  That's why they park it way out by itself for a while after landing.  It takes several hours to remove the nastiness (or as much as possible) before they can move the vehicle.

Brad

I know one reason they isolate the shuttle is because they use hydrazine to fuel the APU and it is highly toxic and carcinogenic. I don't know what else is on the shuttle but I doubt there was any hydrazine in or on any space debris.

[Manedwolf]

I know one reason they isolate the shuttle is because they use hydrazine to fuel the APU and it is highly toxic and carcinogenic. I don't know what else is on the shuttle but I doubt there was any hydrazine in or on any space debris.

The hypergols used to power the OMS system will explode if mixed, so there's a whole lot of things they need to safe and drain off once it's on the ground.

[DustinD]

Could it be vaporized heavy metal?

I really doubt it is radiation. I don't think space stuff is radioactive enough to matter. If you do get radiation sickness symptoms right away you wont live long enough for the story to be printed.

[lee n. field]

I've never heard of anyone getting ill from a meteorite, something strange is going on.

You've obviously never read H. P. Lovecraft.

West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.  There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight.  On the gentle slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs.

Of course something strange is going on.

[Antibubba]

Waiting for shaggoths to appear, Lee? 

Chupacabra.  It's the only logical conclusion.

[mfree]

I left a note on another board and forgot to mention it here. Shucks

Anyhow, the area is still putatively geologically active. Reports said that there was boiling water coming from the crater.

Obvious conclusion? Hydrogen sulfide and other volcanic gasses. If they were standing in the immediate area they could have even gotten carbon dioxide toxicity.
EDIT:

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/region.cfm?rnum=1504

And that's a short list. I wouldn't be surprised to find no meteor at all, just a new fumarole.

[Werewolf]

Peru sits right on top of the Ring of Fire.

One possibility for the sickness is that the impact opened a small fissure leading to a source of underground volcanic gas. That would account for the smell, the headaches and the sickness.

A fissure releasing noxious gases is not unheard of. The Temple of the Oracle in Delphi, Greece sats right on top of such a fissure (now inactive) that was a source of subterranean gas many believe to be responsible for the Oracle's trances.