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CNN Live Saturday

Lava Cuts City of Goma in Half

Aired January 19, 2002 - 18:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: (AUDIO GAP) flowed today through the center of Goma, a city already devastated by a volcano's fury. Dozens of people are dead and hundreds of thousands of residents are now homeless.

ITN's Peter Morgan has more on the destruction caused by the Congo volcano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER MORGAN, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Streams of molt and lava race into Lake Kivu in eastern Congo. Behind them, the remains of Goma, home until Thursday to half a million people. For the third day running, waves of molten rock up to 100 meters wide have swept over the town. The lava flow has slowed slightly today, but constant earth tremors suggest that Mt. Nyiragongo's eruption is far from over.

The eruption's happening in one of Africa's most troubled regions, the border between Congo and Rwanda. Lava flows from Mt. Nyiragongo have forced a massive exodus from Goma. Around 300,000 people have moved 12 miles east to the Rwanda town of Gisenyi. Another 200,000 have fled west into the mountains and forest of eastern Congo.

Goma itself has been cut into, leaving tens of thousands stranded. Hundreds of tons of molten lava have now poured into Lake Kivu, and aid agencies fear this may set light to reserves of methane trapped beneath the lake.

Volcanologists say this now looks like the most powerful eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo for over a century.

JOHN MURRAY, VOLCANOLOGIST, OPEN UNIV.: I think it's probably the largest that I'm aware of. There was a very big eruption in 1977, but it certainly didn't get as far as Goma. So it's very much bigger from the point of view of the amount of lava that's come out, and also from the fact that this fisher (ph) is very long and has reached right into the center of this population center.

MORGAN: Tonight, there are reports of earth tremors in Gisenyi, where tens of thousands have come to flee the volcano. Aid agencies want them to move on to camps at Ruhengeni (ph), but many Hootoos (ph) fear that if they go too far into Rwanda, they'll face attacks from Tootsie (ph) fighters.

"We don't want to be hassled and taken to Ruhengeni (ph)," said this man. "Because the situation there is very catastrophic. There's no food or water."

Britain's already promised two million pounds in aid, and this afternoon an Oxfam plane flew out with water supplies for up to half a million people.

JUSTIN FORSYTH, OXFAM: What we're really concerned about is infectious diseases like cholera and diarrhea will spread very quickly with these groups of people who are packed together and in refugee camps or on the roads as they leave Goma. And we basically got a window of the next few days to get a lot of food, water, and shelter equipment in there.

MORGAN: Frustrated at the lack of food or shelter, some families have tried to return to Goma, but aid agencies and volcanologists in the region are warning tonight that the eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo is far from over.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: That was ITN's Peter Morgan reporting.

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