On August 21 , 1986 , a strange rumbling noise was heard at Lake Nyos in Northwest Cameroon . The following morning , 1,746 people and over 3,500 livestock within 25 kilometers ( 16 mile ) of the lake werefound dead .
Ephriam Che , a farmer who lived in a nearby clay - brick menage on a cliff , hear the rumblingat around 9 pm . Thinking nothing of it , he go to bottom presently afterward . When he wake the following twenty-four hours , he manoeuvre down to a waterfall and found it strangely dry . Weirder still , the whole place was eerily unruffled , with no sounds from birds or animals or even insects to be heard . terrorize , he go on downhill towards the Greenwich Village by the lake , when he get word shrieking .
Halima Suley , a cowherd who lived in the village , was standing there , desperately call for Che ’s attention . Around her were the dead bodies of 31 members of her family , and 400 dead cattle .
" There were no flies on the dead,“Chetold The Smithsonian , because the flies were dead as well .
Others had similar stories . " I was sit , just sitting among the all in people inside the house , some of them were outside , some of them behind the houses and it was animals everywhere lie , cows , dogs , cows , everything , so I was confused by then , " Monica Lom Ngongtold the BBC . " All the family , we were 56 , but 53 died . "
There was no planetary house of any struggle here or in the Greenwich Village below , where C of others lay dead – roughly where they would have been at around 9 pm when that ominous sound had occurred . The only other clues were the feel of rotten eggs , and strange stain on the body of the dead and the living .
" When I rouse up I had burns on my left weapon , " Monica said . " By then I was feel no pains . The arm was giving in a path that it was nearly having rotten because of the injury . "
It was n’t unmortgaged to anybody what had happened , with people putting it down to chemical attack as well as more superstitious account . Those that had hold out – mostly people who quickly sought high ground away from the lake – described family fellow member catnap on the floor dying where they lay , while they were spared , as well as a swarm of flatulence rolling out from the lake at astonishing speed . Some of the people turned out to be just unconscious and woke the surveil sidereal day to see the vista of carnage around them .
scientist come down upon Nyos to investigate in the coming weeks , find bodies strewn everywhere , and a lake that had turned from blue to bolshy . Of those who had survived , many were suffering from vomiting , diarrhoea , and hallucination , all of which were symptoms of CO2poisoning .
Survivors talk about the disaster .
sample from the lake confirmed the cause of the incident . Lake Nyos was forge in a volcanic crater , which was raise CO2.Usually , in volcanic lake , the flatulence would be publish as the piddle is disturbed and sloshes around . Lake Nyos , however , was unusually still – and as a result , there had been abuildup of CO2 in the deposit for decade , unsung to anyone nearby . It ’s not know what exactly disturbed the lake that day – whether it was a landslip or just sudden release of the gas – but when it went off , about 1.2 three-dimensional klick ( 0.24 three-dimensional miles ) of CO2wasreleasedin about 20 seconds , spilling over and stifle anyone in its track . The flatulence is denser than the beleaguer air , so itspared those who were standingup or happened to be on higher ground , while anyone sleep on the floor would never waken up again .
It ’s not the only lake to have this problem . Lake Kivu , between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda , is much , much braggy than Nyos and ring by a far denser universe . Studies have show extinction consequence in the lake take place every thousand years or so , so it ’s probable not a matter of ifanother extinction event will hap , but when .
