In 1986, a villager heard the sound of boiling water in the middle of the night, but he didn't pay attention to it, turned his head and fell asleep again. As a result, the next day, about 1,700 people in the village died, and cattle, sheep, birds, insects and other animals were almost wiped out.
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In Cameroon, there is a very different lake, and under its sparkling beauty, there is another "hidden murder" face, which is Lake Nyos, which is known as the "murder lake".
It was a night in 1986, and Lake Nyos was as calm as ever, lying quietly under the crater in the moonlight, reflecting the sparkling ripples on the surface of the lake.
However, no one thought that such a seemingly inconspicuous lake would have an amazing explosive power, and could even deprive nearly 2,000 lives overnight.
In the quiet of the night, the villagers near Lake Nyos had fallen asleep, but with a loud noise, like thunder, the silence was completely broken.
Suddenly, the originally calm lake began to set off stormy waves, a hundred meters high, followed by a thick gas gathered above the lake, that night a strong wind blew, this unknown gas, straight to the village of Nyos.
This gas was filled with the smell of rotten rotten eggs, and instantly invaded the villages of Sibu and Cha, led by the village of Nyos, and then divided into the east and west roads, until the gas surrounded another twenty kilometers, and then gradually faded.
After this night, the fate of the villagers here was completely rewritten, because they didn't know it, they just slept and never woke up.
It wasn't until two days later that someone passed through the stench-eroded place, and the shock was self-evident, and silence enveloped the land, for there were no signs of life in sight, but corpses in the place.
One survivor recalled waking up in a daze and unable to speak, until he fell into a coma again, and when he woke up, he found that the village had changed dramatically......
The villagers who live here, not even the livestock, poultry, and even ants and insects that live on this land, have not escaped this disaster, but what is happening here? What is that unknown gas?
In fact, this is not the first time such an incident has happened, as back in 1984, two years before the incident, there was a lake called Lake Manun not far from Lake Nyos.
In a similar way to Lake Nyos, a large amount of gas accumulated above the lake's surface, and 37 villagers suffocated to death.
All these indications suggest that the culprit of these two incidents is the sudden appearance of highly toxic gases, and after research by scientists, the release of this gas is suspected to be related to the "volcano".
Because it is near a volcano, a lot of organic matter accumulates in the deep layers of the lake after each volcanic eruption, and after slow decomposition and change, a large amount of carbon dioxide is released.
Yes, that means that the gas that accumulates on the surface of the lake with the foul smell of rotting eggs is carbon dioxide, but at the same time, it is also very shocking.
Carbon dioxide is almost closely related to the human body, and people's breathing all the time is also related to carbon dioxide, but why is the carbon dioxide on the lakeside so powerful that it can directly kill nearly 2,000 villagers.
After a study by a volcanic expert group sent by the United States, it came to the conclusion that although carbon dioxide is colorless and odorless, when it accumulates in large quantities and its concentration is too high, it will affect the respiratory function of the human body.
If the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than 1 percent, it will pose a danger to human life, and at that time, the carbon dioxide level in the lake was already as high as 98 percent, and there was no doubt that living things could not survive in this environment.
According to statistics, there are as many as 1,000 such "murderous" lakes in Cameroon, so how to effectively solve the "murderous lakes" has become the top priority in Cameroon.
After careful research, scientists have developed equipment to detoxify the bottom of the lake, and the villagers who live nearby have also placed them in a safe location.
It has to be said that in the face of the power of nature, human beings seem so small, but through various human initiatives, this situation has been effectively improved, which is also a symbol of human wisdom.
Key Sources:
China Meteorological Service - 2001-04-30 Report on "Mysterious Murder Lake".
China Youth Network——2016-02-21 Report on "Lakes Can Kill: Revealing the Mysterious "Killing Lake" in Cameroon".
