Congo volcano leaves smouldering damage but major city spared

GOMA • A smoking trail of lava from a volcanic eruption covered hundreds of houses in eastern Congo yesterday, leaving residents to pick through the wreckage, though the flow halted just short of the major city of Goma.

Goma was thrown into panic on Saturday evening as Mount Nyiragongo erupted, turning the night sky an eerie red and sending a wall of orange lava downhill towards the lakeside city of about two million people.

Thousands fled on foot, some towards the nearby border with Rwanda.

As the sun rose yesterday, a smouldering black gash could be seen on the outskirts of Goma, where the lava had cooled to rubble.

At some points, it was three storeys high, engulfing even large buildings and sending smoke into the grey morning sky.

Residents in the Buhene district sorted through the mangled white remains of tin roofs or lifted rocks - tiny individual efforts in what will likely be a months-long campaign to restore the zone.

It was not immediately clear if anyone had died, or how widespread the damage was.

"We hope that in time this will end. And by God's grace it is over," said one resident in Kibati, about 15km north of Goma.

Nyiragongo's previous eruption in 2002 killed 250 people and left 120,000 homeless.

It is one of the world's most active volcanoes and is considered among the most dangerous. Saturday's eruption appears to have been caused when fractures opened on its side.

The flow towards Goma appeared to have stopped a few hundred metres from the city limits. A separate lava flow that headed east over unpopulated terrain towards Rwanda had also stopped.

Lava crossed a main road out of Goma, cutting it off from cities to the north. Traffic was in gridlock in most places.

"We've been extremely lucky that it was very brief," said Professor Dario Tedesco, a volcanologist based in Goma.

REUTERS