Mount Nyiragongo

• Democratic Republic of Congo

  2nd largest country in Africa with a population of 78 million, 11th most populated in the world
• Democratic Republic of Congo

  • Extremely rich in resources
  • Suffers from political instability
  • Lack of infrastructure
  • Corruption
  • Commercial and colonial extraction
• Democratic Republic of Congo is ranked 176th out of 187 on the human development index
• Eruption occurred

  January 17th 2002
• Eruption of Mount Nyiragongo

  1. Seismic activity indicated magma was moving within the volcano

  2. Fumarolic activity - the release of steam and gas
• Mount Nyiragongo


  Active stratovolcano found on the Albertine rift, the western branch of the African Rift Valley
• Divergence of the African and Arabian plates


  Allows magma to rise to the surface
• Mount Nyiragongo has erupted at least 32 times since 1882
• Impacts of the eruption

  • Homes destroyed by ash and lava
  • 45 people killed by lava flows within the first 24 hours
  • Water pipes severed and electricity supplies cut off
  • Difficult travel due to lava on roads
  • 2 of Goma's hospitals were buried under lava
  • Parts of the runway at Goma airport were also buried
  • Cholera spread due to poor sanitation
  • Total 147 deaths with many being due to carbon dioxide gas
  • 120,000 people in Goma left homeless after 45,000 homes were destroyed
  • Earthquakes felt up to 3 months after the eruption
  • Businesses, jobs and infrastructure was destroyed
  • Aviation fuel and Goma airport exploded
  • Carbon dioxide toxicity has killed children as gas seeps from the ground to cause asphyxiation
• Response to the eruption

  1. Evacuation of the local population

  2. Water supplied by tankers due to cut water pipes

  3. Aid agencies involved in the distribution of food, medicine and blankets

  4. Temporary refugee shelters in Rwanda to house 500,000 people who fled lava flows
• Monitoring of volcanoes 365 days a year, seismic data collected every 4 minutes and temperature data collected every 10 minutes
• Rebuilding of damaged and destroyed infrastructure took time due poverty of the country