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.

With active-duty members of the military aiding operations, F-16 fighter jets screamed overhead to look for debris along a path running roughly south-east from the city of Rice to Nacogdoches.

Officials were also searching for the astronauts’ remains.

NASA immediately warned people not to touch any of the thousands of debris pieces littered across Texas because of the danger of toxic contamination from the shuttle’s fuel.

Police and national guardsmen fanned out to guard pieces of wreckage ranging in size from a postage stamp to the boot of a car, marking them with a traffic cone or yellow tape, until NASA officials could collect them.

Police Lieutenant Darrell Trawick in Nacogdoches stood for hours over a six-inch-long (15cm) charred bit of metal.

Passersby left their vehicles to look at the object .

Local officials said dozens of people went to area hospital emergency rooms to be checked by doctors after handling debris. They were told to wash with soap and water and were sent home.

There were no reports that falling debris injured anybody or caused much damage on the ground.

William Pinkston, a resident just outside Nacogdoches, said he informed police he found a patch of human hair among debris that fell into a front yard.

Several police and other officials were scouring the yard. Police cars and an ambulance were parked outside.

“We heard a rumbling sound. We thought it was a tornado and then - wham - something hit the trailer”, Bradley, Pinkston’s father, said after another small piece of debris bounced off the roof of his mobile home.

CNN said a family reported finding a leg in a field in Hemphill, Texas. Investigators later carried a black body bag from the area and placed it into the back of a hearse as they bowed their heads.

“We are not ready to confirm that we have found any human remains,” Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerrs said.

He added that among the roughly 1,000 calls reporting debris, some people said they found remains of crew members.

One piece of wreckage about three feet long buried itself as it plunged into a cemetery at Nacogdoches, where hundreds pieces from the spacecraft dotted the college city of about 30,000 people.

On a nearby roadside, just outside Palestine, Texas, a Stars-and-Stripes flag had been planted next to a flat, curved piece of metal about four-by-six-foot.

Dozens gathered to look at what seemed to be a part of the shuttle’s nose.

Local weather officials estimated the lighter material in the debris cloud would take hours to drift down, while all big pieces had likely already hit the ground.

The US space agency NASA lost contact with the shuttle about 2pm GMT. Television images showed Columbia, which was completing a 16-day mission, appearing to disintegrate above Texas, leaving several white trails across brilliant blue skies.