Thousands of people are fleeing a volcanic eruption in eastern Congo. Many are still missing.
The region around Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most violent areas in the world. Over the past 25 years, the region has been turned into a civil war zone by countless rebel groups, and five million people have lost their homes. The spectacular lake and mountain world sometimes shows its violent side: For example, when, as on Saturday, the almost 3,500 meter high Nyiragongo volcano erupts. When it erupted 19 years ago, 25 million cubic meters of lava flowed into the center of the provincial capital of Goma, which has more than a million inhabitants. At that time, many houses and the airport were destroyed, more than 250 people died. Up to 2,000 people were killed in an earlier outbreak 44 years ago.
Numerous missing persons
Judging by this, the residents of Gomas were lucky this time. The lava flow stopped a kilometer from the city gates. The airport was also spared. According to experts, this time it was not a real eruption either, “only” a crack in the crater of the volcano, they say: The magma lake then ran out.
After all, the two lava flows destroyed a total of 17 villages and more than 500 houses – mainly in a suburb of Goma called Buhene. Several elderly people who were too weak to flee are said to have died there. “I tried to carry him away,” said 68-year-old Ernestine Kabuo of her sick husband to Reuters: “But I couldn’t, he burned our house.” On Monday there were 15 fatalities – nine people alone died in a traffic accident caused by refugees.
A total of 30,000 people tried to flee. Some of them escaped to the neighboring country Rwanda. However, it is feared that even more victims are buried under the now cooled magma. The children’s aid organization Unicef speaks of 170 missing children and 150 children who miss their parents.
“We were very lucky that only the lava lake flowed out and no new magma came out of the chimney,” said the volcanologist Dario Tedesco, who is stationed in Goma. Therefore, the speed of the magma flows was also rather slow. In previous eruptions of the Nyiragongo, these were up to 100 kilometers per hour. The volcano in Virunga Park is therefore one of the most dangerous in the world. The fact that the outflow of the previously rapidly filling lava lake was not predicted by scientists is apparently also due to the fact that the financing of Goma’s volcano observatory by the World Bank has not been secured for six months because of allegations of corruption. The center has had no internet connection since October, said its scientific director Celestin Kasereka Mahinda. Therefore, no more seismic recordings have taken place.
