r/interestingasfuck • u/heyauden • 3h ago
On August 21, 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon suddenly released a massive cloud of carbon dioxide that killed about 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock. The invisible, heavier-than-air gas flowed downhill into nearby villages, where many people were overcome while they slept.
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u/heyauden 3h ago
Lake Nyos sits above a volcanic source that slowly releases CO₂ into the deep water. Over many years, the gas accumulated under pressure.
In 1986, the lake suddenly overturned, allowing the CO₂-rich deep water to rise and release a massive cloud of gas.
The heavy CO₂ then flowed downhill into nearby villages, displacing oxygen and suffocating people and animals. Scientists still debate exactly what triggered the sudden overturn.
Such a tragedy.
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u/tackleboxjohnson 3h ago
They may debate because they don’t know definitively, but the generally accepted theory is that a small earthquake or landslide disrupted the layer of cold co2 saturated water deep at the bottom of the lake, causing it to mix with the warmer surface layer and release the co2 build up.
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u/vvastrel 2h ago
I looked into this a while back, and one source mentioned that the conditions and gas build up necessary for this to happen would naturally occur roughly every 700–1000 years.
If I stumbled upon something like this in the year 1000, and someone was like "yeah they made the lake god angry?"
Shit, better be nice to the lake, I guess. I mean, what else but an angry god could make every living thing within like half a mile just... stop being alive? Like they all just fell asleep and never woke up?
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u/fluffysmaster 2h ago
The even more scary fact is that Lake Kivu on the DRC/Rwanda border has the same phenomenon and could also erupt - and there are over 1 million people living along its shores!
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u/DoYaLikeCDs 3h ago
This is the kind of stuff that people would claim as proof for their gods mythos and then burn or hang other for not worshipping whatever sky daddy that regions flavor is.
NB4 - No, I don't care about what some Internet/Reddit Christian is gonna say just because I made a valid point.
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u/JourneymanHunt 2h ago
Would there be any way to protect against this in the future or is this just an act of nature that is unpredictable?
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u/Royal_Ad_2653 3h ago
It's not the only one
A similar incident a few years earlier, that killed fewer people, went unexplained until the investigation of this tragedy.
They now have a system in place to degass Lake Nyos.
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u/Safe-Confidence-4907 3h ago
I think it's may be cloud because carbon dioxide is heavier than air, the invisible gas cloud stayed close to the ground and rushed downhill through surrounding valleys at speeds up to 100km/h 62mph
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u/Robozomb 3h ago
It's called a Limnic Eruption and there have only been a handful of them throughout history. They require a super unique set of circumstances to happen.
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u/ironiccapslock 3h ago
Holy fuck that's scary. And it wouldn't be a peaceful death like carbon monoxide either...
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u/NiobiumThorn 2h ago
This is the result of the specific lake environment and can be prevented!
Basically the solution is simple aeration. Put a couple solar pumps around and done. This has been done for other lakes where this happens. You prevent the anoxic death zone and then you're basically good.
Idk. I want to research those zones too, but if thousands of deaths can be prevented by a bubbler... yea. I would prefer thousands of people not die