Indians join in prayers for lost astronauts

THOUSANDS of people in northern India braved a cold winter’s night on Saturday to ring temple bells and pray for a miracle after the space shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry with an Indian astronaut on board.

Aerospace engineer Kalpana Chawla, a symbol of pride for Indians, was one of the seven-member crew aboard the shuttle that broke up as it prepared to return to Earth after completing a 16-day mission. NASA said there appeared to be no survivors.

As news of the tragedy reached Chawla's hometown of Karnal, a wheat and rice-growing centre just outside the capital New Delhi, people streamed out of their homes to pray for Chawla and her six crewmates.

Chawla's elder brother Sanjay told reporters outside his home in New Delhi that he first learnt of the disaster in a mobile text message from his wife, who was with family members in the US to watch the shuttle landing.

"I knew within my heart that something big had gone wrong," he said.

People gathered at Hindu temples across Karnal chanting prayers for the first Indian astronaut to fly on a US space mission.

Chawla moved to the US after graduating from Punjab Engineering College in the northern city of Chandigarh in 1982. She received her doctorate from the University of Colorado.

A keen stunt pilot, she started working for NASA in 1988. She had already logged 376 hours in space after serving as a mission specialist on a previous shuttle flight.