Indian scientists are investigating whether a man was killed by a meteorite, which if confirmed would be the first recorded death from falling fragments of space rock in almost 200 years.
Jayalalithaa Jayaram, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has said a bus driver at a college in her state was killed by the meteorite and awarded Rs100,000 in compensation to his family.
Local officials were struggling to explain the mystery blast at the engineering college that left a small crater and broke windows.
The bus driver was standing on a patch of grass near the college cafeteria when he was killed, while two gardeners and a student were injured, officials said. A dark blue stone resembling a diamond was found at the scene.
A team from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics was expected to visit on Tuesday to collect samples.
The last reported death from a meteorite strike was in 1825, according to a list kept by International Comet Quarterly, a scientific journal. In 2013, a meteorite exploded over central Russia, raining fireballs over a vast area and causing a shock wave that smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured 1,200 people.
