One night in late August in 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon belched hundreds of thousands of tons of CO₂. At first the gas rose, then it settled like a blanket and smothered thousands of people within a 15 mile radius to death as they slept.
Back then I was a young teenager in neighbouring Nigeria, and it was huge news. I remember being utterly terrified. It was our Pompeii - life blinked out in an instant.
Even today I feel a chill when I think of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster
David Njoku
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2026-04-28 09:56:18 UTC
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2026-04-28 09:56:18 UTCEvent JSON
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