How Safe Is Africa's Deadliest Lake?

Between Rwanda and the DRC lies a strange lake with the capacity to explode: Lake Kivu. It is one of only a handful of lakes in the world like this: they build up volcanic gas in their bottom waters until they sit like a bottle of champagne with a cork on top. Pop the cork and the gas can be explosively released. I had the honour of visiting one of the other such lakes, Lake Nyos, back in 2001 (more about that below); it had blown up in 1986, tragically killing more than 17000 people. Lake Kivu is much, much bigger, with many, many more people living on its shores. Commercial efforts are currently underway to extract some of its gas (both to lower the explosive risk, and to burn the extracted methane as fuel for electricity). But experts can't agree whether the lake is getting safer or not.

https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-02523-5/index.html

This was a hard feature to report. The people involved care deeply about Rwanda and its people; many have strong views about the lake and how best to extract its gas. There is a lot of disagreement, and a lot of deeply-felt emotions. I hope that the data from the lake becomes more accessible, and that the community arrives at a consensus view on the best and safest things to do. 

Credit: P Richon

My own personal Lake Nyos adventure was a different story. Back in 2001 I was a fresh intern at New Scientist magazine in London, just getting on my feet as a journalist. I had written a cover feature about a wacky attempt to extract minerals from a volcano on a remote and disputed Russian-Japanese island, and the researchers working on Lake Nyos, reading it, thought I'd be a good fit to cover their own project (they didn't know that I had written the first feature from the safety of my desk in London; but as a young rock climber I was up for an adventure). The trip was arranged by email, and I set off on a long journey: after arriving in Cameroon's capital of Yaounde, a two-day car trip was required, involving payments to armed guards standing at road-checks. Arriving tired and dusty at camp, I stepped out of the car to gasps of shock: I was a woman. (My name, Nicola, looked male to the French researchers who had requested my participation.) They were concerned that their primitive camp didn't have 'facilities' for a woman; I reassured them I had brought my own tent and was used to rustic environments: "Don't worry," I said, "I'm Canadian."

I feel truly honoured to have had the opportunity to watch those pioneering scientists insert a pipe into Lake Nyos and drain it of its explosive gases. In hindsight, the trip was probably far more dangerous than I had bargained for (both geologically and politically). There was an awkward moment when I entirely ran out of cash and had to visit the embassy for rescue; I was young and naive and perhaps out of my depth. The science was compelling. But when I look back on that experience I feel I really missed out on meeting the locals and hearing their side of the story: what it was like to live through this experience, and the subsequent struggle of being evicted from their homes for reasons of safety. As I get older, I start to see stories as less about the science and more about the people. Hopefully this makes me a better reporter.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16922834-800-the-monster-in-the-lake/