Читать книгу The Worst World Disasters of All Time - Kevin Baker - Страница 21

Lake Nyos

Date: August 21st, 1986.

Location: Cameroon.

Disaster Type: Fatal release of 80 million cubic metres of Co2

Fatalities: 1,700 deaths.

Resulting Damage: 3,500 livestock also killed.

Some natural disasters seem to happen in very mysterious ways. Sometimes there are no solid explanations as to why certain things occur. This is the case with the sudden gas release from Lake Nyos in Cameroon. The way this particular event occurred and the aftermath are still being studied by geologists from all over the world.

At approximately 9:30 PM on August 21st, 1986, an incredibly high amount of carbon dioxide gas was released from the lake. The lake is 208 meters deep and it is one of the three known lakes that are saturated with carbon dioxide. It was given the title of the ‘Deadliest Lake’ by the Guinness book of World Records in 2008 and the name is certainly fitting for this particular situation.

No pinpointed cause has been found for the event, but some geologists say that the cause was probably abnormal subsurface heat levels or a geological tremor that produced a small explosion of magma. The amount of gas expelled by the lake that day was enough to fill 10 soccer stadiums, and was released in as little as 20 seconds. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and this caused it to fall down into the villages near the lake.

This gas which sped down to the villages at a speed of up to 30 mph, was silent and completely invisible. Some people might think that this gas is not normally harmful to people as it is naturally present in the air at about 0.3 percent, and they would be right, but when it completely replaces regular air intake, it can cause asphyxiation and almost certain death. This phenomenon caused the gas to completely push aside the air that was circulating there. It only took a few minutes for more than 1,700 people to die that night. Many of them died in their sleep because they went unconscious due to the lack breathable of air while they slept. Many of the luckier people who survived woke up around 10 to 16 hours later. The reason why some people survived is because of the way the wind was directed in their specific location.

Over 3,500 livestock died in this disastrous explosion which created a silent and invisible deadly cloud of death. A survivor whose whole family died in the incident said that he was awoken by the lack of oxygen only to find himself unable to talk, to catch a breath or even move properly.

The survivors from the villages of Cha, Nyos and Subum were forced to relocate as ordered by the Cameroon government, to prevent another tragic occurrence happening near the lake. There was also a lot of international assistance provided for this disaster, with people coming from all over the world into Lake Nyos to help with the process of degassing the lake in order to avoid another explosion in the near future. There are also efforts being made to discover exactly what caused this explosion because all the studies up to this point are inconclusive and there are only theories to explain it so far.