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CNN Saturday Morning News

Lava Consumes Half of Goma, Congo

Aired January 19, 2002 - 09:12   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: A river of fire has consumed more than half of the Congolese town of Goma. It just looks like hell on earth. Mount Nyiragongo is one of Africa's most active volcanoes and is proving to be relentless.

CNN's Catherine Bond joining us now by telephone from Goma with the very latest. Catherine, what can you tell us?

CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, relentless it certainly is, because we've had earth tremors, some of them very strong, throughout the day again today and throughout the night.

Yes, I think that Mount Nyiragongo, now that it's done its damage, so has stopped spewing lava to the extent that it did on Thursday. Certainly the lava flows on Goma's streets are inching forward, but that's apparently because the molten lava inside the blackened crust occasionally bursts through and pushes the lava flow a few feet down the street at a time.

So it's not coming down at the speed that it initially did. It must have come in pretty fast, because we've seen trucks and houses and shops and businesses all engulfed in volcanic rock. People had time to leave and to take a few possessions, but they certainly didn't have time to go and open up the office and get out much of what was -- what else was valuable to them.

Mount Nyiragongo, oddly enough, can't be seen easily from Goma today, and that's because there's a snow cave (ph). Usually it dominates the city, rather gloomy and foreboding, a large hulk of a mountain behind it. And now, strangely, you can't see it at all.

CALLAWAY: Catherine, I know the scene is chaotic there, but what is the latest on how many people have died in this?

BOND: Very little information on that. When we spoke to the Congolese and Rwandan Red Cross this morning, they said 47 was the official number of casualties. But they didn't know whether that was exact or not. We've heard of one person, a woman who said that she felt that her mother had died because her mother had stayed behind in the house when the rest of the family left.

But we haven't bumped into many people who say that they've lost members of their families, at least not yet, and we haven't been able to talk to people, for example, in rural areas outside the town of Goma, so the story out there could be different.

But we have bumped into a large number of people who've lost their homes, so it seems the case that maybe tens of thousands of people have lost their homes, judging by the amount of destruction that's been done to the center of Goma, and by the fact that Goma was very densely populated, a lot of people packed into small room, and that would account for the very large number -- numbers displaced by this volcanic eruption.

CALLAWAY: We're watching this incredible video of the destruction there, it's just unimaginable. What about the people that are fleeing there and heading toward Rwanda? Any idea of the numbers of people who are leaving?

BOND: Tens of thousands, certainly, I mean, hundreds of thousands are thought to be affected, perhaps as many as 400,000 in the area. We've certainly seen thousands of people ever-resourceful. They haven't received any help in Gisenyi yet, and not much, anyway. There is some talk of some high-protein biscuits being on street corners somewhere, but we've seen very little in the way of emergency response from the aid agencies yet.

And the Rwandan authorities have been very orderly and have tried to direct them to refugee camps, out of danger, out of harm's way, out of Gisenyi, which is really almost the same town as Goma, it's just split by the Rwanda-Congo border.

But in fact the Congolese have chosen to put their families onto boats and to send them south across Lake Kiru (ph) to the city of Bukagu (ph) in the Congo, where they feel that they might find help perhaps from families and friends.

CALLAWAY: Well, let's hope they do. CNN's Catherine Bond joining us by phone from Goma. Thanks, Catherine.

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