Is Tourists & Gorillas Safe After DRC Volcanic Eruption?

Many travelers and environment care takers are asking the same question is tourists & gorillas safe after DRC Volcanic Eruption, and the answer is yes. A volcanic eruption in eastern Congo left a smoking trail of destruction half a mile wide on Sunday that buried hundreds of houses and left residents searching for missing loved ones, before halting just short of the city of Goma

Goma was thrown into a panic on Saturday evening as Mount Nyiragongo, one of the world’s most active and dangerous volcanoes, erupted, turning the night sky an eerie red and sending a wall of orange lava downhill towards the lakeside city of about 2 million people

Fifteen were killed, including nine in a traffic accident as residents fled, four who tried to escape Muzenze prison in Goma, and two who were burned to death, government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya in a statement confirmed.

Haunted by the memories of an eruption in 2002 that killed 250 people and left 120,000 homeless, residents fled on foot with their belongings, some towards the nearby border with Rwanda.

The International Federation of Red Cross said that between 3,000 and 5,000 fled into Rwanda and Saturday, many of the peasants and farmers with livestock. The eruption was caused by the fractures opened in the volcano’s side, causing lava to flow in various directions

Is Tourists & Gorillas ‘Safe’ After DRC Volcanic Eruption?

What are the effects of this volcanic eruption on mountain Gorillas? – Is Tourists & Gorillas Safe After DRC Volcanic Eruption?

Mount Nyiragongo is an active stratovolcano with an elevation of 3,470 m (11,385 ft) in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Albertine Rift.

It is located inside Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, about 12 km (7.5 mi) north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater is about two kilometers (1 mi) wide and usually contains a lava lake

Nyiragongo’s cone consists of pyroclastic and lava flows. Its flows of lava are usually low-silica, alkali-rich, ultramafic extrusive rocks essentially free of feldspars.

They range from olivine-rich melilites through leucites to nephelinites, containing, in various proportions mainly the minerals. This very low silica composition results in eruptions with unusually fluid flow, whereas most lava flows move rather slowly.

Tourists who were near the crater of the Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo when the volcanic erupted are all fine.

Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) said that the rare gorillas in the Virunga National Park were not threatened by the eruption and all are safe

The park inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List covers 600,000 (1.5 million acres) of tropical rainforest that is notably home to the world’s biggest population of eastern lowland Gorillas.

The Nyiragongo volcano, whose slopes of which dominate the city of Goma and Lake Kivu, erupted suddenly on Saturday night, sending thousands of residents fleeing in panic.

The Goma is a zone of intense seismic activity, with six volcanos, including Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira, which rise to 3,470 and 3,058 meters (11,384 and 10,033 ft.) respectively. Eruptions are frequent, not just from craters but from the sides of the volcanoes

The Virungas are the habitat of the mountain gorillas, although there is no known mountain gorillas population in Nyamulagira.

Due to the distance and topography of the mountain, none of the Fossey fund field offices are in any immediate danger.

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