When Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2002 it seemed like a disaster.Molten lava plunged down the hillside and poured into nearby Lake Kivu.
Many died, and much of the city of Goma was destroyed. In fact, the local people were lucky.
Had the eruption spread to one of the many volcanic faults under Lake Kivu, it could have unleashed one of the most terrifying of all natural phenomena – lake overturn.
The Nyos disaster promoted a survey of deep lakes in Africa and Indonesia to see where else lake overturn could happen. All seem to be safe, except one – Lake Kivu, in Rwanda.
In only 16 minutes of this documentary, I have determined that it probably could have been a five minute video. The narrative continually backpedals to things that have already been established. For example: The culprit behind how the lake kills is carbon dioxide, it had nothing to do with the volcano is immediately followed by them investigating a volcanic eruption and discussing if that had caused the deaths. Bruh. My brother in Christ. WE ALREADY KNOW THAT IT’S THE CARBON DIOXIDE. YOU JUST TOLD US! But ok keep investigating the possibility of an eruption??????? It’s like I slept in the day I was supposed to write my university thesis and I don’t even really know what it is and I keep back peddling to concepts I forgot to flesh out but I never took the time to format it in a way that made any f-ing sense and also, I repeat myself over and over to get it long enough. Eventually I realized that this must have been made for broadcast television, with the market of frequent channel surfers in mind but that makes this s— unwatchable in this, the year of Our Lord, 2022. Thank-you for coming to my Ted Talk.
I’d be willing to stipulate that the gas is NOT CO2, but Methane.
Give them gas masks?
Interesting documentary, thank you. I would love to see the map of which lakes were surveyed. Lake Taupo, here in NZ, has an active, submerged hydro-thermal vent which must be belching out considerable quantities of CO2 amongst other gases. I’d be very interested to see if Taupo was tested.
Entirely disturbing documentary but fascinating. I never knew that such phenomena could exist in lake beds and the video footage to absolutely chilling. The world is a pretty hostile, unbelievably complex place and discovering little secrets like this that it can harbour and then randomly unleash succeeds in making an already quite vulnerable human being feel considerably more so.
Highly recommended… turn the lights out and prepare for nightmares.