Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo Volcano Erupts, Sending Lava For Miles But Sparing A City
By Kat Lonsdorf
May 23, 2021
Mount Nyiragongo in Congo erupted suddenly Saturday night, turning the sky a fiery red, sending lava spilling down its sides and threatening the major city of Goma.
Overnight, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the region reported during a reconnaissance flight that the lava didn’t appear to be flowing toward Goma, a city of nearly 2 million on the edge of Lake Kivu. But still, thousands evacuated — many across the border into Rwanda — remembering the widespread devastation that the last eruption in 2002 caused, when reports of the death toll ranged into the hundreds