In the Shadow of Doom

Schmid’s team, which has been studying the lake since 2002, has deter­mined that Nyiragongo is unlikely to trigger a major CO₂-and-methane upsurge, but that a volcanic eruption beneath Lake Kivu could do so. Their observations (pieced together from two different sources) are alarming: “New fractures toward the lake opened during the last eruption—“tectonic activity has been unusually high during the past few years—“volcanic cones indicate that magma eruptions have happened at the lake floor in the past—“a gas release from Lake Kivu could cause an unimaginable disaster.” More than two million people live near Lake Kivu today; history suggests that a limnic eruption could kill them all.

The natural disasters threatening Goma are perhaps avoidable. On a bluff above Goma’s downtown, an internationally funded volcanological observatory maintains a flotilla of sensors directed at Nyiragongo and Lake Kivu. Any advance warning of an eruption will be last-minute, however. According to Professor Dario Tedesco of the University of Naples, a former UN consultant, “I am afraid it is a matter of days, or probably of hours.” But it should still save lives.

Lake Kivu could be defanged if massive pipes were installed to vent excess gases. The many millions the project would cost could even be paid for by the lake itself if the fifty-five cubic kilo­metres of methane dissolved within—more than ten times the amount used annually by the DRC and Rwanda—were to be sold.

Such a plan, however, would require organization, stability, investment. None of that can be found in Goma. While the volcano churns and the lake seethes, warlords still battle UN peacekeepers and smugglers, and politicians continue to loot the country’s enormous natural wealth. If and when natural disaster erases Goma from the map, today’s human disaster will be to blame.

On the road back to the city, Gabriel and I pass the lava-shortened airfield where creaking Russian airplanes land and take off at all hours carrying mining prospectors and smuggler barons. The city’s residents, meanwhile, are stuck buying their gasoline from roadside gangs because all the gas stations were immolated in 2002. During power failures, which last for days or even weeks, they must trudge to Lake Kivu to collect water by hand. “I become so angry,” Gabriel says, “that I feel like I myself am the volcano.”