The city of Goma in eastern DR Congo was deserted Friday, a day after tens of thousands of residents fled after warnings that the nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano may erupt again.
Africa Daily News, New York understands that Goma, a city located on the shore of Lake Kivu, has been gripped by fear since Africa’s most active volcano erupted on Saturday, leaving 32 people dead.
Scientists monitoring the volcano have warned of a potentially catastrophic scenario — a “limnic eruption” that could smother the area with suffocating carbon dioxide.
Goma was bizarrely quiet early Friday after the authorities ordered a “preventative” evacuation, triggering an exodus that choked roads out of the city.
All the shops were closed and just a handful of people and some motorcycle taxis were on the streets.
Security guards were deployed around the local mansions, their windows shuttered, on the shore of the lake.
A few families were seen leaving the city on foot, bags of belongings on their heads, with their children holding hands. There was no special deployment of police or military personnel.
Local volcanologists recorded hundreds of aftershocks after Nyiragongo, which lies just a dozen kilometres (eight miles) from Goma, roared back to life last Saturday.
But tremors eased overnight, both in numbers and intensity, a source noted.
Experts have been carrying out a risk assessment at the volcano’s summit, the government says.
General Constant Ndima, the military governor of North Kivu province, ordered the evacuation of districts that potentially applies to nearly 400,000 out of Goma’s 600,000 residents, according to an estimate by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
The wider Goma area has a population of around two million people.
‘Right now we can’t rule out an eruption on land or under the lake, which could happen very soon and without warning,’ Ndima said.
The authorities arranged transport towards Sake, around 25 kilometres west of Goma, he added.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
