Lake Nyos, Cameroon

By -
From its churning, sometimes stormy atmosphere to its shifting tectonic plates, Earth can be a dangerous place. Earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters killed more than 780,000 people between 2009 and 2009, according to the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat. Millions more were injured or displaced. No one knows how the next decade will shape out, but some areas have more reason to worry than others.
A silent killer lurks beneath the surface of this West African lake. A pocket of magma deep below the lake bed leaks carbon dioxide into the lake above. Under the pressure of 650 feet (200 meters) of water, this carbon dioxide stays dissolved, much like the carbonation in a bottle of soda. But on the night of August 21, 1986, the water in the lake abruptly turned over, and the now-depressurized carbon dioxide exploded upward like a shaken soft drink. The resulting carbon dioxide cloud rushed downhill, asphyxiating 1,700 people and thousands more animals. In the 15 miles (24 kilometers) of valleys below the lake, almost nothing survived. Today, pipes are used to siphon carbon dioxide-rich water from the bottom of Lake Nyos. The pipes prevent carbon dioxide buildup, but that doesn't make Lake Nyos entirely safe, said George Kling, a University of Michigan geochemist who was on the team that originally investigated the 1986 disaster. "We're keeping ahead of the game, but we're not drawing the gas down very quickly," Kling said. "That means that it still is a very dangerous lake."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hazaribagh, Bangladesh

By -
Image
Renowned for its health resort, Hazaribagh is also notorious as a colossal pollutant of the Buriganga River, into which its 270 tanneries unceremoniously dump thousands of tons of horrifically toxic waste every single day. Most workers in these outdated, crude factories have their homes constructed close to water sources (streams, canals, etc.) which are now immutably infested with hexavalent chromium, a powerful carcinogenic: an agent directly involved with causing cancer. The extreme disregard for safe waste-disposal/working practice – like leather recyclers who simply burn leather scraps and release the toxic fumes into the atmosphere – are contaminating the air and water of Hazaribagh and risking the livelihood of every single person who calls that wasteland home.
Read more

Oymyakon, Russia

By -
Image
Danger Feature: Extremely low temperatures Thousands of miles towards the east of Moscow, located in the heart of Siberia is the Russian village of Oymyakon. Having scarily low temperatures for a permanently inhabited place, it is one of the coldest places in the world. The lowest temperature to be recorded here was -71.2 °C (-96.2 °F). Only 500 people live here with great difficulty and barely manage to survive the harsh weather conditions. They live on the edge, unsure of whether their bodies will sustain them until the next morning. Mobiles phones do not function in such cold climates, and hardly any crops grow here.
Read more

Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin, Argentina

By -
Image
Literally translated as “Slaughter River,” the Matanza basin is a 40-mile stretch of effective landfill carrying disease and toxic water south of the Argentinian capital. Some 20,000 people are forced to live on its grimy banks; shared with thousands of industrial sites which infect the basin with dangerous contaminants – like heavy metals and literally tonnes of oil and petrochemicals – until very few areas contain anything even resembling safe drinking water. The local children are known for the extraordinarily high levels of lead and chrome in their blood, inducing a long list of malignant health issues. Nearly two-thirds of those living by the Matanza banks are in a squalor deemed “unsuitable for human habitation.”
Read more