Mount Nyiragongo is rarely calm. The mountainous volcano in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is one of the few places in the world to feature a persistent lake of lava bubbling within its summit crater.
And late on May 22, 2021, things abruptly escalated: Fractures opened up in the volcano’s rocky sides, spilling fast-moving lava down its slopes. Some of it headed toward the city of Goma, a metropolis just six miles away that’s home to around 1.5 million people. The night sky shimmered with a crimson hue as lava, sometimes piling up to three stories high, speedily invaded the streets of several villages surrounding Goma and swallowed any buildings it encountered, setting them ablaze.
Two of Nyiragongo’s recent eruptions, in 1977 and 2002, were full-blown disasters. In 1977, estimates suggest somewhere between 600 and 2,000 people were killed by lava flows. In 2002, molten rock destroyed up to a fifth of Goma, leaving 120,000...
This recent volcanic eruption in eastern Congo has buried hundreds of houses and left residents searching for missing loved ones in a lakeside city of about 2 million people.
There have been confirmed casualties, a number expected to rise.
Haunted by memories of an eruption in 2002 that killed 250 people and left 120,000 homeless, residents fled on foot with their belongings, some towards the nearby border with Rwanda.
