Lake Nyos

Lake Nyos is something that I had heard about in high school, but didn't really know too much about.  I am sure a lot of people haven't heard about it either.  It is truley an interesting tragedy that happened to the people in Cameroon that lived near Lake Nyos. 

I remember when my French teacher in high school first told us about Lake Nyos.  She was talking about African's perceptions of people in the United States coming there.  She lived in Africa, in Cameroon actually, with her parents for 12 years growing up.  She said that when she remembers the first time when her and her family walked down to the lake, everybody in the village would give them dirty looks.  After people got to know them they opened up to them why this was.  Many people in Cameroon believe that the explosion in Lake Nyos was caused by something that American's did, such as a bomb experiment that went bad and therefore was covered up by the government!

On August 21, 1986 1,700 people and 4,000 livestock that lived in villages of Cameroon surrounding Lake Nyos died.  The lake literally exploded and a cloud covered the area.  The cloud spread up to about 16 miles from the lake to surrounding areas such as Nyos and Kam.  The lake before the explosion was a blue shade and after it's now a rust color.  The whole environment changed.

What caused so many people to die and the lake to change?

Carbon Dioxide was to blame for this tragedy.  CO2 is present in the bottom of the lake since Lake Nyos rests on a valcano.  The CO2 comes from magma.  Scientist disagree about exactly what happened, but many believe that CO2 was building up at the bottom of the lake for some time before the occurance.  They beleive that a external force, such as a rock sliding down into the lake triggered the release of gas and in turn causing the water to explode and the cloud of carbon dioxide to form.