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Wildfires - Australia
Volcanic eruption - Congo
Torrential rainfall and flood - Indonesia
Earthquake - Turkey
Torrential rains and ensuing flood -
Ecuador
Earthquake - Afghanistan (March 3rd)
Earthquake - Afghanistan March 25th)
Earthquake - Taiwan
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Catastrophe Report 1
January 1 – March 31, 2002
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Volcanic eruption - Democratic Republic of Congo
| Territory: |
|
Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Region: |
|
Goma district, eastern Congo (Rwanda
border) |
| Date: |
|
Jan. 17, 2002 |
| Event: |
|
Volcanic eruption |
| Impact: |
|
45 dead; 40 percent of Goma (including much of
the commercial and business district) and 14 villages destroyed
by lava; Goma airport badly damaged; 400,000 people evacuated;
120,000 homeless |
| Summary: |
|
Mount Nyirogongo erupted on January 17th generating
rapidly moving (1.2 to 1.8 km h) lavas on the eastern and southern
flanks. The main phase of the eruption, which had been predicted
by a local volcanologist, lasted for about a week, with all
activity over by mid-March. The lavas issued from new fissures
on the flanks of the volcano and travelled 19km in the first
24 hours. Nyirogongo’s main crater contains a lava lake,
which periodically drains through the flanks. This happened
in 1977, killing around 70 people, and the lava lake was also
active in 1994, when it threatened Rwandan refugee camps in
the vicinity of Goma. |
| Data sources: |
|
Volcano World (http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html)
Reliefweb
(www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf)
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| Additional sources: |
|
For pictures of the latest eruption go to:
to the BBC News site at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1772000/1772326.stm
For background information on Nyirogongo:
The Global Volcanism Program (http://www.volcano.si.edu/gvp/)
More images and 3D reconstructions from space.com at: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/volcano_020203.html
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