Vellore blast that killed driver not meteor impact, just land-based explosion, says Nasa

Officials probing the crater reportedly caused by meteor impact at Vellore, Tamil Nadu, last week

February 10, 2016, NewsCrunch

Nasa has issued a statement saying that the Vellore blast that killed a college driver was not the result of a meteor activity.

Nasa scientists analysed photographs of the blast and said they were more consistent with “a land based explosion” than with something from space, reports The New York Times.

The statement also pointed out that meteorites were are often cool to touch when they land, The object recovered in India weighed only a few grams and appeared to be a fragment of a common earth rock, it added.
Kamraj, a driver of Bharatidasan Engineering College in Vellore, was killed on Saturday in an explosion, which the local officials said was caused by a falling meteor. The explosion also damaged the window panes of the college building.

On Sunday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had blamed Kamraj's death on the meteorite and announced compensation for his family.

However, Lindley Johnson, Nasa's planetary defence officer, told NYT that there had been no scientifically confirmed death by meteorite impact in human history so far.

She made the statement after the Vellore incident was reported.