Halima Suley News Today

WARNING: DISTURBING IMAGES. Ephraim Che was one of the few survivors after a silent killer swept through a small village called Nyos and killed everything in its sight – over one night

When Cameroon's Lakes Monoun and Nyos exploded, they released clouds of carbon dioxide that suffocated everything in its wake.

Mother Nature has always been the world's deadliest serial killer. But even her most violent phenomena have met their match in the occasional lucky human.

On August 21, 1986, a strange rumbling noise was heard at Lake Nyos in Northwest Cameroon. The following morning, 1,746 people and over 3,500 livestock within 25 kilometers (16 miles) of the lake were found dead. Ephriam Che, a farmer who lived in a nearby mud-brick house on a cliff, heard the rumbling at around 9 pm. Thinking nothing of it, he went to bed shortly afterward. When he awoke the following day, he headed down to a waterfall and found it strangely dry. Weirder still, the whole pla...