People in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) woke to more powerful tremors on Saturday morning as fleeing families seeking shelter from a feared second volcanic eruption struggled to find enough food and water.
Dozens of people died when Mount Nyiragongo volcano, one of the world’s most active, roared back into life a week ago, sending rivers of lava spreading towards the nearby city of Goma that destroyed thousands of homes along the way. The lava stopped just short of the city limits, but thousands of more people fled on Thursday when the government warned that the volcano could erupt again at any time.
Most people have headed to the town of Sake or the Rwandan border in the northeast, while others have fled by boat across Lake Kivu. Nearly 10,000 people are taking refuge in Bukavu on the lake’s southern bank, according to Governor Theo Ngwabidje, many of them in host families.
In Sake, some 20 kilometers (13 miles) northwest of Goma, people slept wherever they could – on the side of the road and inside classrooms and churches.
Late on Friday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame appealed for “urgent global support” to manage the crisis, while the United Nations’ children’s fund (UNICEF) said some 400,000 people needed support or protection.
“With an increased risk of a cholera outbreak, we are appealing for urgent international assistance to avert what could be a catastrophe for children,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s representative in the DRC.
The evacuation order was issued about 1 am local time on Thursday after radar images showed molten rock flowing under Goma.
The movement of magma caused cracks in the ground and hundreds of earthquakes, which could allow it to burst through to the surface in a fresh eruption, the Goma Volcano Observatory (OVG) said.
Volcanologists say the worst-case scenario is of an eruption under the lake. This could release hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) currently dissolved in the water’s depths. The gas would rise to the surface of the lake, forming an invisible cloud that would linger at ground level and displace oxygen, asphyxiating life.
Congolese authorities, meanwhile, reopened the main road which was split in two by lava, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday.
