First time in History..Rumours of a Meteorite killing a man in TamilNadu, India

A meteorite crashed into an engineering college in Vellore district, causing an explosion that killed one man and injured three others, the Tamil Nadu government said.

Scientists, however, said it wasn't clear how the government concluded that a meteorite strike caused the blast.

There has been no established death due to a meteorite hit in recorded history, they said. If a meteorite indeed caused the death, bus driver Kamaraj will be the first person ever to have died in a meteorite strike. Saturday's blast also injured two gardeners and a student.

Regardless of the skepticism of experts, chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday said the government would pay compensation of Rs 1 lakh to Kamaraj's family.

The three people injured in the explosion will receive Rs 25,000 each, she said. Witnesses said the blast left a crater 5ft deep and 2ft wide. Policemen recovered a black, pockmarked stone weighing 11g from the blast site.

A police officer said the department would consult experts from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru and ask them for a detailed analysis of the stone to ascertain whether it is debris from a meteorite. A team of experts from the institute will visit the site on February 8.

A bomb squad from Chennai took debris samples on Sunday for analysis at Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Mylapore. Police said preliminary investigation by police forensics experts ruled out the possibility that explosives caused the blast.

"We did not find any trace of explosive substances, so we ruled out the possibility that explosives caused the blast," an investigating officer said. 

"Organizations like International Meteor Organization have already put out the calendar for 2016 -for the days we can expect meteor showers and if there are any chances of them hitting earth. These occurrences are catalogued for the benefit of stargazers," said Isro Mars Orbiter Mission project director V Adimurthy.

"They even predict the time of the meteor showers and are almost never wrong," he said. "The last meteor shower was on January 3 and the next one is between April 22 and 23. There is nothing for February."