Death god threatens Nigeria

The Nigerian government is urgently building dams to prevent the possibility of a dangerous lake on Cameroon's crater breaking and releasing toxic gas.

Located on the mouth of an inactive volcano, Lake Nyos contains billions of cubic meters of toxic gas at the bottom. (Photo: internet).

Lake Nyos - located in the northwestern part of Cameroon and 50 km north of Nigeria - is one of three sources of water known as death in the world by its ability to kill people. Billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) are accumulating on the bottom of the lake. If released, CO ₂ can kill people in an instant. In 1986, about 1,700 people died after CO ₂ escaped from the lake at night.

Today, Lake Nyos is still a danger because the natural barrier of lava is weakening. An earthquake can cause this wall to collapse, causing water to spill down into the villages below and the release of CO ₂ .

In an interview with Xinhua in Nigeria's capital Abuja on November 5, Obadiah Ando, ​​Nigeria's Minister of Water Resources, said the government had begun to build a backup dam in Kashimbilla village. Taraba state to block water if Lake Nyos breaks.

' We spent a total of 86.7 million dollars to contractors to build dams from March to November. Construction progress is very positive, ' said Ando.

Nigerian officials say about 200,000 households in Taraba state may have to evacuate if Lake Nyos breaks.

The bodies of animals died of suffocation by Lake Nyos on the night of August 21, 1986. (Photo: Nyos ).

Located on the mouth of a volcano that stops working in the northwestern part of Cameroon, Nyos forms due to rainwater accumulating during the cooling of volcanoes. Lava creates a natural dam that holds water. With a length of 1.2 km, the water surface area of ​​Lake Nyos is over 1.5 million square meters.

A bag of lava of volcanoes lies beneath the lake. Carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) from there enters the water in the lake, forming carbonic acid (H ₂ CO ₃ ).

With lakes on the crater, the layers of water flow from the surface to the bottom of the lake and then move back in cycles to make the bottom gas build up into the atmosphere. But Nyos is not like that. Because the bottom is deep and very steep, its water does not flow from top to bottom, causing CO _{2 to} be locked up at the bottom. When the accumulated CO ₂ becomes too large, or when a stimulus (such as landslide, seismic) occurs, the surface water sinks to the bottom and pushes the water upwards. The toxic gas from the dissolved state will escape, just like air bubbles burst when we open the bottle of mineral water.

According to the calculations of scientists, on the night of August 21, 1986, CO ₂ and water rose on the surface of Lake Nyos, creating a column as high as 80 meters. CO ₂ mist moves at about 70 km / h, spreading to villages 20 km away from the lake. About one million cubic meters of toxic gas escaped from the lake, large enough to fill 10 international standard football fields.