Ice "meteor" nearly killed our kids

Feb 23 2008 by Tony Collins

TEACHERS and pupils at a Birmingham school will this week be analysing fragments of "meteor" ice which crashed into a playing field, narrowly missing stunned pupils.

It ploughed into the field at Yardleys Secondary School, in Tyseley, yesterday.

The ice is believed to be a megacryo-meteor - the name given to abnormally large chunks of ice which fall from a clear sky.

Pieces of the ice have now been stored in a freezer at the specialist science college in Reddings Lane for possible further analysis.

Yardleys community co-ordinator John Roden, the school's former head of science, said the block of ice was reddish in colour with no obvious odour.

He said: "This thing literally fell out of the sky and landed on the playing fields, narrowly missing a group of children who were going out to a games lesson.

"The kids thought it was a comet and it flew through the sky before hitting the ground near them.

"It shattered into several large chunks which we have stuck in the freezer.

"It was bigger than a shoebox and has left a sizeable hole in the ground. Without doubt, it would have killed anyone it landed on."

Schoolgirl Saisaa Akhtarckd, aged 12, was on the playing fields when it landed.

She said: "I saw it coming from over the factory next door.

"It  was  coming  down  from  the  sky really fast and melting at the same time, and the droplets were going backwards.

"It just missed us by a few yards. I thought it was a cake because of all the colours  -  pink,  golden  brown  and strawberry, but when we went to see, we could tell it was ice."

Mr Roden said they contacted various agencies to report the incident, including the Environment Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority, in case it came from an airplane flying overhead.

"I have been trying to phone up people to check where it came from, but no one seems to know. It's just like having a science lesson in our own backyard."