World Scene: South Korea

Astronaut rescued by nomads

South Korea's first astronaut said she and her fellow crew were rescued by startled nomads after their space capsule thudded far off course into the remote steppes of Central Asia earlier last month.

Yi So-yeon, 29, told SBS TV she thought she might die as they re-entered the earth's atmosphere more steeply than normal and of excruciating pain from massive gravitational pull and as falling objects inside the capsule crashed into her.

"The nomads were surprised when Yuri (Malenchenko, the Russian flight engineer) climbed out of the capsule," the nanotechnolgy engineer said in a transcript of the interview made available yesterday. "They very well would have been, since a ball of fire fell from the sky and then a white object crawled out of it."

(China Daily 05/01/2008 page6)