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The tragic gas release from Lake Nyos in 1986 had generated great concern
in Rwanda that Lake Kivu, one of the east African Great Lakes, could also
"erupt" with devastating effects. Because of our experience at Lake Nyos,
Michele Tuttle and I were asked by the USGS and OFDA to evaluate the
situation. Much work had already been done on Lake Kivu by German
scientists, and combined with our own work we concluded that Kivu was
relatively stable, but that a future subaqueous volcanic eruption could
indeed cause catastrophic degassing. We recommended increased seismic
surveillance of the area. I first climbed
Nyiragongo during this trip, and
had the fortune to meet and work with Prof. Jean-Baptiste Katabarwa,
Africa's foremost volcanologist and Dean of Science at Rwanda's National
University. Prof. Katabarwa and his immediate family survived the 1994
bloodbath, now resides in Canada, and has joined
GCI in its international
consulting work.
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