Mysterious lake Nyos: why almost two thousand people died near it (5 photos)

And there is still a bad reputation around the reservoir.





Lake Nyos is located in Cameroon. Its area is 1.6 sq. km, depth - 209 m. It appeared in a collapsed crater of an extinct volcano filled with water.



Lake Nyos was formed about 400 years ago

On August 21, 1986, a tragedy occurred: in one night 1700 people died, the entire population of the villages located near the lake. The fact is that the volcano did not completely die out and it was constantly going under the lake the formation of carbon dioxide - CO2. It seeped through the pores magmatic crust, dissolved in groundwater and fell into the lake. IN bottom layers accumulated a huge amount of poisonous gas, which for some reason did not come to the surface.

This was the cause of the disaster.





There was probably an earthquake - and the bottom layers came to surface. Carbon dioxide and moisture turned into the smallest mist, formed a cold aerosol. This toxic cloud has moved aside valleys, destroying everything in its path. Along with carbon dioxide, the cloud was sulfur and hydrogen, and the water in the lake turned red-brown.



In addition to people and livestock, in the vicinity of the lake died and plants. The leaves shrank and darkened, as if they had been taken frost. Later, scientists decided that the gas cooled during expansion and frozen leaves.

Then 1,700 people died and about 1,000 went to the doctors. By the way, in Cameroon there is also Lake Manun, a few years after tragedy on Nyos, a similar incident occurred on it. But with less casualties - 37 people died.



That's when the authorities of Cameroon finally stirred and established pipes at the bottom of the lakes - they regularly release CO2. At the same time they began to freeze air condition and water degassing. In general, this is a common research work on the prevention of natural disasters, but in order to it began, it took the death of almost 2,000 people.