RICE (USA), Feb 1: Debris from the space shuttle Columbia that broke up on Saturday rained down into parts of Texas with residents coming across pieces in fields and on roads, including what appeared to be a door from the orbiter, local officials and eyewitnesses said.

One piece of debris about one metre by 1.6 was smoldering in a field near Rice, Texas.

Police were urging vehicles that slowed to look at the site to keep moving along the major highway that links Houston and Dallas.

Officials in Nacogdoches, Texas, said residents reported spotting many pieces of the toxic debris dispersed throughout the college city of about 30,000 people, located about 230kms northeast of Houston.

“We do have a debris field. It is scattered all throughout Nacogdoches,” city manager Victoria Lafollett said.

“What we’ve done is activated our emergency operations center. Because we have so many pieces throughout the city, we’re asking people to stay away from them. We’re working closely with NASA and the FBI,” she said.

The debris ranged in size and the city had received one report of a door from the shuttle being found, she added.

“The number of pieces being reported is just impossible to keep up with, she said. “Some are very small, some are larger.”

The shuttle appeared to have broken up shortly after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere as witnesses on the ground reported hearing a rumbling sound and seeing flashes and a “tremendous” fog.

“We heard a tremendous rumbling sound,” Lynn Hern from Huntington, Texas told CNN television, saying dogs on her ranch “went nuts.”

“We had a tremendous fog,” Hern said, adding that a ranch worker said he believed there was “rubber burning in our pasture.”

Bob Molter of Palestine, Texas, south of Dallas, told National Public Radio (NPR): “There was a big boom that shook the house for more than a minute. I went outside because I thought there had been a train accident on the nearby line.

“But there was nothing,” Molter said, “and then I looked up and saw the trails of smoke zig-zagging, going across the sky.”

Television images of the shuttle showed several white trails emanating from the spacecraft, suggesting that Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere some 160 kilometres south of Dallas, Texas.

Another caller to CNN who said he was from “deep” Texas said: “We were woken up by this rumble. ... Sounded like a train going through our property. We have 81 hectares, and it sounded like it was in the driveway.”

Several callers to the Cable News Network said debris was being found “all over the place” in Texas.—Reuters/AFP