At a Glance
- Mount Nyiragongo erupted for the first time in nearly 20 years Saturday.
- Mounds of lava covered hundreds of homes at the edge of Goma, a city of 2 million.
- At least 15 people died, many in the chaos caused by the evacuation.
- One volcanologist calls Mount Nyiragongo the "most dangerous volcano in the world."
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A river of lava a half-mile wide gushing from Congo's Mount Nyiragongo engulfed hundreds of homes and set fires before coming to rest at the edge of the city of Goma.
Tens of thousands of people fled late Saturday as the volcano unleashed the lava flow that cast a scarlet glow in the night sky. It was the first time Mount Nyiragongo has erupted in nearly 20 years.
"The sky has turned red," Carine Mbala, a resident of Goma, told AFP by telephone. "There is a smell of sulphur. In the distance you can see giant flames coming out of the mountain."
At least 15 people died, most in car crashes in the chaotic evacuation, the Associated Press reported. UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, said more than 170 children were still feared missing.
When the volcano began erupting, some people boarded boats on Lake Kivu, which lies on the border between Congo and Rwanda in central Africa. About 5,000 people crossed the border into Rwanda. Another 25,000 went northwest toward the town of Sake, according to UNICEF.
Altogether, 17 villages were affected by the lava, government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said in a statement, according to Reuters. Three health centers, a primary school and a water pipeline were destroyed, he said.
The lava has blocked a main aid and supply route running north from Goma, Reuters reported. It also cut the main electricity supply line to the city of 2 million people.
On Sunday, Buhene, a neighborhood at the edge of the city, was covered in smoldering heaps of cooling lava. The hardening stone engulfed an area the size of several city blocks, the New York Times reported.
“We have seen the loss of almost an entire neighborhood," Innocent Bahala Shamavu said, according to AP. “All the houses in Buhene neighborhood were burned and that’s why we are asking all the provincial authorities and authorities at the national level as well as all the partners, all the people of good faith in the world, to come to the aid of this population.”
Ernestine Kabuo, 68, said her husband was too sick to leave their house as the lava approached and she could not carry him.
"I said to myself, I can't go alone, we've been married for the best and for the worst," Kabuo told Reuters. "I went back to at least try to get him out but couldn't. I ran away and he got burned inside. I don't know what to do. I curse this day."
Aline Bichikwebo told AP she tried to save her father but she wasn't strong enough to move him before their home was ignited by lava. Bichikwebo's mother also died.
“I am asking for help because everything we had is gone,” said Bichikwebo, who managed to escape with her baby. “We don’t even have a pot. We are now orphans and we have nothing.”
The lava appeared to have stopped flowing about 3 a.m. Sunday, seven hours after the eruption began, the New York Times reported.
Volcanologists at the Goma Volcano Observatory, responsible for monitoring Mount Nyiragongo, have been hampered since the World Bank cut funding amid embezzlement allegations, Reuters reported.
Analysts at the observatory didn't even have an internet connection from October 2020 to April, the observatory's scientific director Celestin Kasereka Mahinda told a local radio station on Sunday.
"As soon as the internet was restored, we had started recording the warning signals, but since we did not have previous data, we thought it was the start of volcanic activity. Hence this surprise," Mahinda said.
Experts have said the volcanic activity seen in the past five years at Nyiragongo is similar to that before big eruptions in 1977 and 2002.
In 2002, an eruption of Mount Nyiragongo killed hundreds and left more than 100,000 homeless, according to AP.
In 1977, the 11,385-foot volcano killed thousands as lava roared down the mountainside at more than 60 mph, according to the Times.
Dario Tedesco, an Italian volcanologist based in Goma, told Reuters the volcano's crater has refilled with magma. That magma would race down the mountain's slopes if an earthquake caused a crack in the crater.
"There's no doubt Nyiragongo is still the most dangerous volcano in the world," Tedesco said.
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