For ten days he has been responsible for the relocation of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants from the Congolese city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nyiragongo, the most dangerous volcano in Africa, once again threatens this city in the eastern part of the country. This volcano, located in the great East African rift, continues to fascinate scientists and poses an eternal threat to the inhabitants of the region.
Nyiragongo has fascinated volcanologists since one of them, the famous Haroun Tazieff, became interested in it in the late 1950s. He had visited the Democratic Republic of Congo in connection with the eruption, another volcano, Kituro, which is also located in Virunga mountains. But even at that time, Nyiragongo fascinated Haroun Tazieff. He confided years later – 1963 – and declared that “Every night as he looked up at the sky he saw a continuous glow above the black silhouette of Nyiragongo, and that there was something unknown about this volcano at the bottom. This glow had begun twenty years earlier and we did not know what it was due to ”.
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And since Haroun Tazieff was able to approach the crater, we now know what this glow is due to. “It has a crater filled with lava, we see bubbles rising, it bursts,” explains volcanologist Valérie Cayol, a researcher at CNRS and author of several articles on Nyiragongo. She also states: “there are few places in the world where there is lava in craters”.
“A unique lava”
The lava is not only permanent in Nyiragongo but its texture is also very special, emphasizes Dario Tedesco, professor of volcanology at the University of Campania in Italy. This very famous volcanologist is currently in Goma and describes an extremely liquid and very low viscosity lava. “There is no similar lava anywhere else on the planet, it is a unique lava.” This movement “makes it possible to reach exceptional speeds: up to 100 km / h when going down slopes, which explains its danger”.
Testimonies from a photographer also help to better understand Nyiragongo’s activity and violence. This photographer, Olivier Grunewald, is French. He is also the director and author of the documentary “Nyiragongo, Journey to the Center of the Earth”. He is one of the few photographers who specializes in volcanic eruptions. In 2010 with a scientific expedition he was able to get very close, up to 1 m from the volcanic craters. He was struck by “a lava column several kilometers high in an equilibrium situation”. According to him, eruptions of the volcano Nyiragongo are incorrectly described “because it is in permanent eruption, this phenomenon of the lava lake is considered an eruption activity”.
No idea how to sound the alarm
And it is precisely from this “permanent outbreak” that the real thing problems for humans. Volcanologist Dario Tedesco is also convinced of this. He emphasizes that this volcano Nyiragongo did not give on May 22 and the days before any clue that allowed to warn. Interruptions and thermal anomalies generally allow an extinct volcano to see it erupt in advance. Here they are not visible because they have already been there for a long time “.
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The previous outbreak of Nyiragongo was in January 2002. It had killed more than 100 people. Since then, the danger has taken on another dimension: the population has more than doubled, as Valérie Cayol points out, “in 2002 there were 500,000 people in Goma, now there are more than one million”. The unstable political situation in the northern Kivu region explains this movement of people towards the city. “They sought refuge in Goma and this increases the risk.”
With this overpopulation, it takes even a small blast to make things go wrong. That was the case just over ten days ago. Dario Tedesco notes that on May 22, “a very small eruption much smaller than in 2002” occurred. According to him, it would have had less serious consequences if it had occurred in 2002 because “the real cause of the current damage is due to the fact that the population has come very close to the volcano”
Early in the morning of May 23rd. Fortunately, the lava stopped just 300 meters from the outskirts of Goma. But the disaster affected seventeen villages surrounding areas killed at least 32 and destroyed hundreds of homes.
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