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Friday, January 18, 2002 - Web posted at 3:30:23 pm GMT

GOMA - A volcanic eruption in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) caused massive damage in the city of Goma and sent up to 100,000 people fleeing across the nearby border into Rwanda, local and Red Cross officials said.

Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Nairobi, said that initial reports by two ICRC staff who went back to the town on Friday showed that 80 percent of buildings and other infrastructure were damaged.

"We think between 50,000 and 100,000 people crossed over to Gisenyi, Westphal said, referring to a nearby town in Rwanda. He added that Goma's water supply had been cut off by the disaster.

And a top official of the ruling Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), which rule the region in defiance of the central government in Kinshasa, said that whole neighbourhoods had been destroyed by the eruption.

"We need water, food, medicine, covers, tents, and so on. The situation is dramatic," said RCD Secretary-General .

"We did not think the worst could happen, but it did.

This is a catastrophe of dimensions we have never seen before: the extent of the damage is huge, with entire neighbourhoods burnt to the ground," he added.

Mount Nyiragongo, just 10 kilometres (six miles) north of Goma, a city of 350,000 people, erupted early on Thursday, sending massive flows of lava moving towards Goma.

None of the witnesses who spoke to AFP in the city reported seeing any victims, but the south and southwest of Goma were still inaccessible, cut off by the lava flow that bisected the city.

In the city centre only a few walls remained of Goma's cathedral. The rest of the building had been reduced to rubble or burnt down by a lava flow some two meters (around six feet) wide that buried several neighbourhoods which that stood in its path.

Some of the city's inhabitants who had fled to Gisenyi began to return to their homes early Friday, despite a warning from a volcanologist that it was not safe to do so.

Dieudonne Waffula, director of Goma's volcanology centre, told AFP that, although the eruption appeared to be finished, "there are serious risks to the population from emanations of gas... which could provoke respiratory problems."

Those who did return found scenes of devastation.

"The town is completely destroyed, everything must be started up from scratch," said one man who returned during the night. Another elderly man said the scenes were "worse than in 1977 -- this is a catastrophe."

A previous eruption in that year killed some 2,000 people. Fragments of houses, a bicycle, the burnt-out carcass of a motorbike stuck out occasionally from the black walls of still smoldering lava that now dominate the landscape in Goma.

The headquarters of the United Nations observer mission, MONUC, where some 250 Moroccan peacekeeping troops are stationed, remained miraculously intact, a flow of lava missing it by just 300 metres (yards).

But the MONUC buildings, which lie just north of Goma near the airport, were looted, AFP correspondents reported.

Part of the airport's runway was submerged by a lava flow, but the buildings and fuel stocks were untouched.

The authorities in Rwanda called a meeting with aid organisations to decide what emergency measures to take following the eruption.

"We are going to set up camps in the region for one week to house the population of Goma," the prefect of Gisenyi, Fidele Mutzindo, told AFP.

Volunteers from the Rwandan Red Cross were already in the city, and United Nations aid agencies were preparing to launch emergency operations from the Rwandan capital Kigali.

On January 10, 1977, almost 2,000 people were killed in less than 30 minutes when Nyiragongo erupted, producing a 1,000-metre-wide river of molten rock that moved at up to 100 kilometres (60 miles) per hour.

The flow reached the northern edge of Goma, incinerating everything in its path, sparing only a lucky few who had fled to high ground.

French volcanologist Jacques Durieux said Thursday's lava flows travelled much more slowly than the deadly one in 1977, averaging around 180 metres (yards) per hour.

He added that increased seismic activity had been observed in Nyiragongo four days ago, when the volcano began emitting ash and dust.

Nyiragongo is one of about a dozen volcanos making up the Virunga range.

Another of these, Nyamuragira, is also active. Nyiragongo showed activity in 1982, 1994 and February 2001, without producing a lava flow. Nampa-Sapa-AFP

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