When the African volcano Nyiragongo erupted unusually fluid lava in January 2002, nearly 500,000 Congo citizens were displaced, and dozens were killed. The lava did not erupt from the central crater, but instead ran from fissures along the southern slopes, just north of the city of Goma.
In central Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sit two volcanoes: Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira. Besides their proximity to Lake Kivu in the south, these volcanoes share the capacity for destruction, each having produced its share of catastrophic eruptions since the early twentieth century. Yet these volcanoes differ markedly from each other, one being a low-profiled structure rising subtly from the plain, and the other sporting steep slopes.
In late November 2006, Nyamuragira Volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo erupted, and local scientists feared the lava flows would impact nearby towns. Between the volcano’s activity and the armed civil and interstate conflict that has plagued the region for nearly a decade, however, personal inspection of the location and extent of the lava flows was nearly impossible.