On the evening of September 15, 2007, a chondrite meteorite crashed near the village of Carancas ( [show location on an interactive map] 16°38'38?S 69°03'17?W? / ?-16.64389, -69.05472Coordinates: [show location on an interactive map] 16°38'38?S 69°03'17?W? / ?-16.64389, -69.05472) in the Desaguadero District of Chucuito Province in the Puno Region, Peru, near the Bolivian border and Lake Titicaca. The impact created a crater larger than 4.5 meter (15 ft) deep, 13 meter (42 ft) wide, with visibly scorched earth around the impact site. A local official, Marco Limache, said that "boiling water started coming out of the crater, and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby",as "fetid, noxious" gases spewed from the crater.On September 20, Peruvian scientists confirmed that there had indeed been a meteorite strike, but no further information on the cause of the illnesses was known.Meteor crater specialists have called the impact unusual, and have stated that the meteorite was at least 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter before breaking up. According to experts, reported details about the event initially did not add up, such as the water in the muddy crater boiling for ten minutes from the impact's heat. Because the impact site is at a high altitude of more than 3800 meters, the meteoroid may not have been slowed down as much as it ordinarily would have been by passage through the Earth's denser lower atmosphere, and kinetic energy at impact may have been unusually high for a terrestrial impact of an object of this size and mass.
Soon after the impact, over 600 villagers who had visited the site began to fall ill from unexplained causes,including symptoms of dermal injuries, nausea, headaches, diarrhea and vomiting.The ground water in the area is known to contain arsenic compounds, and the illness is now believed to have been caused by arsenic poisoning incurred when residents of the area inhaled the vapor of the boiling arsenic-contaminated water.
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