Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, among the world’s most active volcanoes, emerged on Saturday, sending out stressed homeowners of the close-by city of Goma running away, although a volcanologist stated the city did not seem in threat.
People got bed mattress and other possessions and ran away towards the frontier with surrounding Rwanda as a red radiance filled the sky above the city.
Dario Tedesco, a volcanologist in the lakeside city of around 2 million, informed Reuters Goma did not seem at danger, and lava seemed streaming east in the instructions of the Rwandan border. Earlier he had actually stated he believed lava may strike Goma, however he later on stated this was not the case.
“I can see high lava fountains,” Tedesco informed Reuters.
A United Nations source stated a reconnaissance flight by a U.N. helicopter appeared to reveal the lava was not streaming towards Goma or any significant population centers.
Nyiragongo last emerged in 2002, killing 250 individuals and making 120,000 individuals homeless after the lava streamed into Goma.
“The government is closely monitoring the situation in Goma,” Congo’s federal government spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya, stated on Twitter.
“The local authorities are currently evaluating the situation with the volcanological observatory in Goma … The population is encouraged to remain calm.”
Volcano watchers have actually been stressed that the volcanic activity observed in the last 5 years at Nyiragongo mirrors that in the years preceding eruptions in 1977 and 2002.
Volcanologists at the Goma Volcano Observatory (OVG), which keeps track of Nyiragongo, have actually struggled to make fundamental checks because the World Bank cut financing in the middle of embezzlement claims.
