Deadly Congo Volcano. (Earth News).ON JANUARY 18, one of Africa's deadliest volcanoes unleashed a river of lava--scalding liquid rock--down its steep slopes, smothering smothering death by asphyxiation. Occurs where poultry are carelessly herded into a corner where they cannot escape and where they are piled four or five birds deep; they will die of asphyxia very quickly. See also crowding. the town of Goma. The torrent erupted from Congo's 3,469-meter (11,380-foot)-high Mount Nyiragongo Mount Nyiragongo is a volcano in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Great Rift Valley. It is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 19 km north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. (NEE-ur-uh-GONG-go). The lava flows--six-feet deep in some places--killed an estimated 147 people, and forced 500,000 more to flee. "Goma was flat, black, and burning," says Anne Morris of the humanitarian aid Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity. organization CARE. "At least 50 percent of housing is gone, school buildings, hospitals--all destroyed." Of eight volcanoes that straddle In the stock and commodity markets, a strategy in options contracts consisting of an equal number of put options and call options on the same underlying share, index, or commodity future. the borders of Rwanda, Congo, and Uganda, Mount Nyiragongo is the most feared: Its last eruption in 1977 killed around 70 people when molten rock burst through long cracks, called fissures, lining the mountain's flanks. Volcanoes most often form on or near tectonic plate boundaries, regions where Earth's nine continental crusts converge (see map). Shifting plates can spur an eruption by forcing magma, or molten rock, up from Earth's 2,900-kilometer (1,802-mile)-thick inner layer, called the mantle. The continual movement can also trigger a barrage of small and large earthquakes--many of which rocked Goma for days before and after the eruption, causing dozens of buildings to collapse. The mostly uninhabitable city of Goma now lies beneath rock-hard crusts of blackened black·en v. black·ened, black·en·ing, black·ens v.tr. 1. To make black. 2. To sully or defame: a scandal that blackened the mayor's name. 3. lava. "But some piles are still hot enough to fry an egg on," says Morris. "Like ice, the surface crust can break to reveal the scorching scorch v. scorched, scorch·ing, scorch·es v.tr. 1. To burn superficially so as to discolor or damage the texture of. See Synonyms at burn1. 2. lava below." WORLD'S MAJOR VOLCANOES This map shows the world's major volcanoes and Earth's plate boundaries. * Why do many volcanoes form on or near plate boundaries? * Which continent has no major volcanoes? Why? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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