Mount Nyiragongo: Second Eruption Feared as Two Wide Cracks Appeared, Prompting Mass Exodus

On Tuesday, two major cracks manifest itself on the ground in the eastern DR Congo city of Goma as aftershocks that were powerful came from the Mount Nyiragongo volcano and shook the area, an AFP reporter saw.

The Wide Cracks

Cracks, that measure up to several hundred meters (yards) long and several dozen centimeters (approximately two feet) across in places, opened up as the tremors from the volcano about a dozen kilometers (nine miles) away hit the city.

The lengthy crack ran from Mount Goma, which marks the northern perimeter of the city, to the major hospital and Lake Kivu banks. The less lengthy crack, about 100 metres long, appeared close to Goma airport, on the northeastern part of the city, on the surface of the major highway from Goma to Butembo.

Residents said they were concerned about a potential eruption after Nyiragongo came back into life on Saturday, discharging a flow of lava that got to the outskirts of the city, although no sign of any panic was noticed and some shops stayed open. Furaha Nyirere, who lives close to the airport said: "We don't have an idea on what to do, everyone is confused, no word has been heard from the authorities and things are moving around throughout the place."

Nyiragongo

Nyiragongo (can be also spelled as Niragongo), one of the most beautiful and active volcanoes in the world, is an enormous stratovolcano close to Lake Kivu at the eastern border of DRCongo with Rwanda in the Virunga National Park. It has a 1.2 km diameter peak caldera comprising the most active and largest lava lake in the world.

Nyiragongo is well-known for its exceedingly fluid lava that runs as water when the drainage of the lava lake occurs. Nyiragongo erupted on January 17, 2002 and the lava lake drained from openings on its western flanks. The voluminous lava flows destroyed the city centre of the Goma town, the capital of the East Virunga province. 200,000 individuals were rendered homeless, adding to the human desaster brought about by constant civil wars.

The Large Lava Lake

Nyiragongo, sited in the Western branch of the Rift Valley close to Lake Kivu and the border of Congolese-Rwandese, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

It is well-known for its lava lake and generating lateral eruptions with extremely fluid, rapid-moving lava flows that devastated regions around the volcano repeatedly, like the Goma desaster on January 2002, when a lava flow destroyed much of the commercial center of the city and prompted 200,000 people to flee.

The large lava lake that is inside its deep summit crater, now active again, became well-known in the 1960's and 70's when volcanologists like the Kraffts and Tazieff studied it.

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