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American Morning
Half the Town of Goma Now Covered by Lava From Deadly Volcano That Began Erupting a Few Days Ago
Aired January 21, 2002 - 07:33 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, defying relief workers and braving fires and rivers of molten rock, thousands of residents from the town of Congo are attempting to return to their homes. Half the town of Goma is now covered by lava from the deadly volcano that began erupting just a few days ago and killed nearly 50 people so far, and scores more may have died at a gas station explosion in town just today. But despite all of this danger, residents refuse stay in refugee camps and are determined to get back to their homes.
CNN's Catherine Bond is in Goma, and she joins us now with an update -- Catherine, good morning -- delighted to be able to link up this live shot with you. What's going on there today?
CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. Well, one of the major motivations of some parents at least to go back to the town of Goma is to look for their children. Some parents lost children in the crush to come over to Rwanda several days ago when the volcano first erupted, and they are now desperately searching the area to see if they can find them.
The Rwandan Red Cross have set up a little center here in Gisenyi, where unaccompanied children have been brought together, so that parents can come and look for them in one place. But we have met as many as four parents in just about an hour in Goma today, who said they haven't seen some of their younger children now for three or four days, so they are incredibly anxious. That's one aspect of what's going on.
There are still tens of thousands of people returning, despite the lava flow that cuts through the center of the city. It's very hot. It's red hot underneath. It's still flowing underneath. It has a blackened crust, and we walked across it ourselves, and our shoes felt as if they were going to melt by the time we had been across and back again.
But they are going back. Sometimes they're going through the old collapsed houses that have collapsed alongside the lava flow that weren't buried by it, and picking out things as small as keys and locks, pots and pans, nails -- anything that they can salvage, anything that can be sold. I think in the best of times, people in Goma lead a very marginal existence -- Paula.
ZAHN: Catherine, you just described why so many parents want to go back to their homes, particularly those that haven't seen any signs of their children. How concerned are officials, though, about the steady stream of people who continue to go back to their homes in what continues to be a very dangerous area?
BOND: They are concerned. They say that a volcanic area should be left for at least 10 days before people return to it. And here, of course, it's only been three or four before people started heading back. But they also say, well, if that's what they want, we're not going to stop them and both the Rwanda -- the Rwandan interior minister and the LCD (ph) rebel officials, who control the city of Goma, have said that. They'd rather perhaps that they stayed out and were definitely safe. But if they want to come back, then what can they do to stop tens of thousands of people? I mean, you'd have to have, you know, security cordoned (ph). You'd have to deploy the army and the police. It might involve shooting. That would cause more problems than it's worth.
And they're going back, because they are hungry. That's really the truth of it. The majority of them say that they didn't eat or drink anything for the three or four days they were here. That's partly because relief workers weren't able to provide food in time, and it's also apparently, according to the Congolese, because the Rwandans -- the local Rwandans weren't very generous to them -- Paula.
ZAHN: I guess it's much easier to understand upon hearing that why so many of them are streaming back to their homes. Catherine Bond, thank you so much for that update -- appreciate it.
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