Congo Volcano Leaves Smoldering Wreckage but Major City Spared
Voice of America
GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - A smoking trail of lava from a volcanic eruption covered hundreds of houses in eastern Congo on Sunday, leaving residents to pick gingerly through the wreckage, though the flow halted just short of the major city of Goma.
Goma was thrown into panic on Saturday evening as Mount Nyiragongo 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. Thousands fled on foot with their belongings, some towards the nearby border with Rwanda. As the sun rose on Sunday a smoldering black gash could be seen on the outskirts of Goma, where the lava had cooled to rubble. At some points it was three stories high, engulfing even large buildings and sending smoke into the gray morning sky. Residents in the Buhene district sorted through the mangled white remains of tin roofs or lifted rocks — tiny individual efforts in what will likely be a months'-long campaign to restore the zone. Elsewhere, groups of people posed for photos on the steaming lava.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
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