In Africa, which is known for its wars and viruses, few countries can stand alone in such a chaotic situation, and the change of regime is like a flower, which makes the development of African countries even worse. However, in this chaotic land, there is such a country that has maintained relative stability, which is rare among African countries.
The country has a population of more than 20 million, about the same as Australia's population, the territory area of 480,000 square kilometers, much larger than the territory of Japan and Germany, the country's population density of 56 people per square kilometer, the country is the Central African country of Cameroon.
Cameroon is a low-key and upright country, it is very different from other African countries, Cameroon does not lack water resources, is the continent's famous "land of fish and rice", thanks to the abundant water resources, Cameroon claims to be "a country without hunger". Perhaps because water resources are too abundant, flooding occurs frequently in some parts of Cameroon, and the most water-rich region in Cameroon is the North-West Province.
While other African fraternal countries are still worrying about water resources, the northwestern province of Cameroon is worried about a lake called Lake Nyos. Before 1986, it was a well-known local fertile land, with beautiful scenery, abundant natural resources and fertile land. However, after 1986, it suddenly became lifeless, and the number of animals was much rarer.
In the hearts of many Cameroonians, Lake Nyos is a terrifying zone, known to many as the "Lake of Killing", which once killed 1,700 people overnight, and the closest village to the lake, Gamnio, suffered the most damage, with only 6 of the 650 people in the village escaping the disaster. Why did the once treasure land of feng shui become a horrible area for killing people? The cause of the incident has to start from the history of this lake.
In the early years, people living around the lake, with excellent water resources, lived a carefree life of food and clothing. But by August 21, 1986, all the good things had come to an abrupt end. On that day, as usual, people went home to enjoy a happy life after finishing their work, but that night, people fell asleep, and suddenly there was a series of strange noises outside.
The loud noise woke the sleeping people from their dreams, and everyone hurried to open the door and look in the direction of the sound, only to see a loud noise continue to sound, and then the whole above Lake Nyos was filled with water mist. As if something was churning at the bottom of the lake, the water of the lake quickly spread around, and the various birds and animals in the surrounding wetlands quickly fled around.
Where have the locals seen this scene, they have lived here for many years, and no one has ever encountered this situation. For a time, many people were frightened and stupid, and they fled in all directions. Some of the young men were curious, and they thought they were going to find out what was going on in Lake Nyos, so they organized a group of people to go to the lake.
Before everyone could reach the lake, a strange smell came from it, and then the originally noisy wetlands and villages quickly fell silent, and all the living creatures fell to the ground without symptoms. Some villagers with better physical fitness, forced to endure the strange smell, tried to wake up their families when their breathing was not smooth. But soon they found that their throats were speechless, as if something was stuck in their throats, and they couldn't shout when they wanted to.
After a few minutes, the few who survived were still unable to escape the scythe of death, and they fell down one after another, unable to get up again, and in this way, the villagers of many villages suddenly disappeared.
In the early morning of the next day, some villagers who were out of the house returned to the village and found that the village was full of villagers who were breathless, and when they saw this scene, these villagers were directly frightened, and then they quickly reported the situation of the village to the local government. The local government was also shocked to hear that more than 1,000 villagers had died suddenly, and the local government immediately reported the situation to the Cameroonian government.
The Cameroonian government immediately sent a large number of rescue teams to the local rescue, but when the rescue team arrived, it was shocked by the scene in front of them. There is not a single living here, not even a single bird or beast in sight, and animal carcasses are everywhere on the road.
The rescue experts realized that there might be a problem with the gas around them, so they quickly changed the rescue team into gas masks and the group arrived at their first destination. When everyone stepped into the first village, as far as the eye could see, there were cold corpses lying on the ground, the corpses were pale, and their facial expressions were very vicious, as if they had suffered great torture before they died.
Through what they saw and heard along the way, the rescue team's experts realized that the culprit in the tragedy was probably an unknown gas in the air. But this is speculation after all, in order to find out the reason, everyone has to go deep into the center of the lake to find out the problem, so the rescue team left some people behind the palace, let them contact the expert group to find out the truth. And the rest of the people continued toward the center of the lake.
However, the further inside, the more shocking things everyone saw, and every time they went to a village, the piles of corpses made everyone shudder, as if they had come to hell. At first, the rescue team hoped to find survivors, and when they saw such a tragic situation, they agreed that there could be no living creatures.
After the rescue team arrived at Lake Nyos, although everyone was wearing gas masks, they all clearly smelled a pungent smell, the lake was full of silt, the water level of the lake also dropped by more than one meter, and many animals and fish corpses floated on the lake surface, and the whole lake was glowing with a scarlet color.
When the rescue team saw such a tragic scene on the surface of the lake, everyone frowned, realizing that it was probably not only a natural disaster, but also something behind it.
After examining the death of the animals and fish around them, they learned that all the living creatures were suffocated and died without any wounds on their bodies, that is, gas was the culprit responsible for the death of living creatures. Rescuers felt they would have to wait for geologists and medical experts to arrive before they could find out more about the truth.
After waiting for a few days, a rescue team arrived, including geologists and medical experts, who, through scientific field investigation, finally found that the culprit of the massacre was the lake in front of them. So what happened to this lake, and why is there such a big change?
Due to cameroon's limited scientific research strength, they can only ask foreign experts for help, so the government quickly turned to international organizations for help, and after receiving the news, the international organizations quickly organized a team with top scientific research strength, including geology, medicine, air, infectious diseases and other fields of experts.
Prior to departure, many experts, based on information provided by the Government of Cameroon, speculated that the causes of this mass human death were probably four scenarios: explosives, infectious diseases, food poisoning and biological and chemical weapons. But these are only the speculations made by experts based on the information provided by the other side, and if you want to find out the facts, you have to go to the scene to investigate.
Upon arrival at the site, through investigation and testing, the team quickly ruled out the bomb factor, where there were no signs of injuries to animals and fish, and the deaths of living animals were not caused by the impact force. The causes of infectious diseases were quickly ruled out by the expert group, and medical experts and infectious disease experts, through careful investigation, concluded that there were no viruses and bacteria that caused large infectious diseases, so infectious diseases and other factors were not considered.
Immediately after that, the experts ruled out food poisoning, and they learned through the surviving villagers that on the night of the incident, the villages did not have a group dinner, and medical experts did not find any toxic substances when they tested the villagers' food, and even the water they drank was natural and pollution-free.
For factors such as biological and chemical weapons, they were quickly excluded by experts, after all, the experts on the scene did not find traces of bacteria and other biological and chemical weapons through instrument measurements, and they also measured the air and found that there was no deadly gas in the air.
The reasons predicted by the experts in advance were all ruled out one by one, and for a time, the top expert group could not find a real answer, just when the investigation was deadlocked, suddenly, a scientist found that the carbon dioxide in the air exceeded the standard when testing the composition of the air.
Based on the composition of air, we know that if carbon dioxide exceeds the standard, it means that any living creature that survives by breathing oxygen will be suffocated alive. After finding the direction of the problem, the experts immediately went to the center of the lake.
When observing on the shore, everyone will find that the surface of the lake is faintly filled with a layer of water vapor, and there is a smell of rotten eggs in the water vapor, combined with the environment and air conditions of the scene, experts realize that the culprit that caused this tragedy is likely to be a big explosion inside Lake Nyos.
It was this big explosion that produced a large amount of carbon dioxide, which spread across the lake and spread around, suffocating the living creatures around the lake.
However, when experts extracted the lake water for testing, no residue of explosives was found, that is, the lake explosion was not man-made, and it is likely that the big explosion was naturally caused.
At the same time, the data from lake water monitoring show that the carbon dioxide composition in the lake water gas is also exceeded. This attracted the attention of the geological experts in the expert group, he got the data, quickly conducted a comparative analysis, and found that under lake Nios is a long-sleeping crater, the lake is actually after the crater depression, the water generated, in other words, this Lake of Nyos was originally a crater, its formation reason and Changbai Mountain Tianchi, is the same as the volcanic pool.
Although the specific reason has been found, experts still have a question, carbon dioxide exceeds the standard, and it will not kill so many living things! We need a more accurate data to determine the real cause.
This time, the team found some survivors of the accident, and through their descriptions, learned that at first they fainted, but fortunately some people survived through the chance, and through them they could find out the truth of the accident.
Through the conversation with the survivors, everyone also figured out the situation of the night. At first, they heard a crackling sound from the surface of the lake, followed by a violent explosion and a column of water tens of meters high. With these clues in hand, the experts already have the answer in mind.
The crater inside Lake Nyos is dormant all year round without erupting, but the magma buried in the ground is constantly surging, and the churning magma continues to produce carbon dioxide, which is released from the rock crevices into the lake. After the carbon dioxide reaches the lake, part of it is discharged into the air and part of it is integrated into the lake.
The lake is hundreds of meters deep, the temperature of the lake at different depths is not the same, and the temperature of the lower lake is obviously much lower than that of the upper lake. In the case of low temperature, the carbon dioxide in the water will reach a very full state, which causes the density of the lower lake water to be much higher than the density of the upper lake water, and when the carbon dioxide in the lower water is gathered to the bottom of the lake, a huge bubble is gradually formed, if there is no external interference, the bubble will not break, but once there is external interference, causing the bubble to burst, it will produce a huge explosion, which will lead to this tragedy.
So, what exactly is causing the bubbles to burst? Through observation, experts found that there was a mudslide on the lake recently, and the mudslide poured into the bottom of the lake, which naturally broke the balance of the upper and lower waters, resulting in the rupture of the atmospheric bubble, which is the truth of this tragedy.
After learning the truth, the Cameroon government is also quite shocked, in order to eradicate this problem, the government and experts continue to try to solve the problem of carbon dioxide bubbles at the bottom of the lake, and even inserted two exhaust pipes up to several hundred meters long at the bottom of the lake, regularly discharging the carbon dioxide at the bottom to minimize the harm caused by carbon dioxide.
However, after taking such measures, Cameroonians did not buy it, believing that the two exhaust pipes alone could not guarantee their safety. Therefore, the government has installed a siphon device to regularly suck up the water and gas at the bottom of the lake through the siphon device to solve the problem of gas accumulation at the bottom of the lake.
Despite the government's great efforts, many Cameroonians have refused to live here in view of the tragic lessons of the last accident, and until now, not many people have lived around Lake Nyos. Because the soil here is fertile, the water resources are abundant, it is the best place to develop agriculture, in desperation, the government has given money to the land, but there are still not many people coming, but the local animal resources are more and more abundant, without human activities, here has become a paradise for animals.
Some superstitious Cameroonians believe that this is not just a disaster caused by carbon dioxide gas at the bottom of the lake, they prefer to believe that there must be an unknown monster at the bottom of the lake, which will wake up regularly and then emit poisonous gas to kill the living creatures around them. Many Cameroonians have even asked the government to drain the lake so that they know the truth, rather than relying on the speculation of some experts to determine the truth.
What a huge amount of work it would be to drain a huge lake a hundred metres deep, which the Government of Cameroon did not have, not even many small and medium-sized developed countries, and even if it did, there was no need to drain the lake in order to find out the truth.
In desperation, the government no longer forced locals to move in, but instead built the place into a nature reserve, and also set up some tourist attractions for tourists to visit. Today, Lake Nyos has been restored to its original appearance, but it cannot get rid of the name of "Lake of Killing". But we have reason to believe that after scientists find out the truth, and relying on the power of science, the Lake Neos massacre will not be repeated.