Mission debris lies scattered acoss State’s fields and highways

DEBRIS from the space shuttle Columbia rained down onto fields, highways and a cemetery in Texas on Saturday, sending dozens of residents to hospitals after they handled the smouldering metal wreckage.

A cloud of ash and metal fragments stretched 160km (100 miles) in the sky above the state’s wide open rural spaces and into neighbouring Louisiana, weather officials said.

In one Texan field, wisps of grey smoke rose from a vast patch of blackened grass where debris had scorched the earth.