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GOMA, Congo – Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark
in eastern Congo with little warning, leaving at least 15 people
dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes,
officials and survivors said Sunday.

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about
5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby
border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to
the northwest in Sake, the U.N. children’s agency said Sunday.

More than 170 children were still feared missing Sunday and
UNICEF officials said they were organizing transit centers to
help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.

Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction it
suffered the last time the volcano erupted back in 2002.
Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left
homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday
was marked by grief and uncertainty.

Aline Bichikwebo and her baby managed to escape when the lava
flow reached her village, but said both her mother and father
were among those who perished. Community members gave a
provisional toll of 10 dead in Bugamba alone, though provincial
authorities said it was too soon to know how many lives were
lost.

Bichikwebo says she tried to rescue her father but wasn’t strong
enough to move him to safety before the family’s home was
ignited by lava.

“I am asking for help because everything we had is gone,” she
said, clutching her baby. “We don’t even have a pot. We are now
orphans and we have nothing.”

The air remained thick with smoke because of how many homes had
caught fire when the lava came.

“People are still panicking and are hungry,” resident Alumba
Sutoye said. “They don’t even know where they are going to spend
the night.”

Elsewhere, authorities said at least five other people had died
in a truck crash while they were trying to evacuate Goma, but
the scale of the loss had yet to be determined in some of the
hardest-hit communities.

Residents said there was little warning before the dark sky
turned a fiery red, sending people running for their lives in
all directions. One woman went into labor and gave birth while
fleeing the eruption to Rwanda, the national broadcaster there
said.

Smoke rose from smoldering heaps of lava in the Buhene area near
the city Sunday.

“We have seen the loss of almost an entire neighborhood,”
Innocent Bahala Shamavu said. “All the houses in Buhene
neighborhood were burned and that’s why we are asking all the
provincial authorities and authorities at the national level as
well as all the partners, all the people of good faith in the
world, to come to the aid of this population.”

Elsewhere, witnesses said lava had engulfed one highway
connecting Goma with the city of Beni. However, the airport
appeared to be spared the same fate as 2002 when lava flowed
onto the runways.

Goma is a regional hub for many humanitarian agencies in the
region, as well as the U.N. peacekeeping mission. While Goma is
home to many U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers, much of
surrounding eastern Congo is under threat from myriad armed
groups vying for control of the region’s mineral resources.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/05/23/mount- nyiragongo-congo-volcano-deaths-victims/5236294001/
 

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