cameroun

 :Pioneer Divisional Delegate of Environment Emmanuel Tumi, for Bui, sounded a warning nearly a fortnight ago that Lake Nyos still poses danger to life in its surroundings.

The Delegate was explaining some environmental issues to over 20 environmental education crusaders on a field trip to the area.

Tumi said the danger currently posed by Lake Nyos was no longer the emission of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the air, but the possibility of an outlet giving way and releasing the large volume of water down the valleys.

Tumi pointed out that the shore of the deadly lake was less than 50 metres to an adjoining waterfalls with water filtering underground to the falls.

He said since the lake was an active volcano, cracks had developed between the shore and the waterfalls with a high possibility of the stretch of soil giving way.

Tumi expressed fears that if quick action were not taken, a tsunami would occur and affecting several lives in Cameroon and Nigeria as well.

He, however, observed that the cost of constructing a dyke to prevent the incident was prohibiting but maintained that it can only be a jointly sponsored project by Cameroon and Nigeria with substantial financial and technical support from the international community.

At the lakeside the Delegate said. He acknowledged government initiative in collaboration with the international community to fund the expensive on-going degassing project of Lakes Nyos and Monoun.

Survivors Still Scared

The environmental educators observed that although farming activities were gradually being carried out in the Lake Nyos environs, settlement was near absent some 20 years after the Lake Nyos Disaster, which took away over 2000 lives.

Zenabu Keh, a lady in her mid-50s, told The Post that she was living in the Nyos plains to farm.

She said she lost her husband in the incident recalling that she was at Weh when the disaster struck.

Although deserted, Keh said Nyos remains a potential business centre.

"Even now, anything you put out here is bought by passers-by," she said.

Mass Graves

The visiting environmentalists were shown mass graves where some of the Lake Nyos disaster victims were buried.

Julie Graham, an official of the Netherlands Development Organisation, SNV, whose organisation works in partnership with the Northwest Association of Environmental Education Teachers and School Environmental Clubs, ASEC-NW, organisers of the field trip, suggested that the government could mark the graves with billboards or monuments for historical purposes.