The streets of Goma were strangely quiet on Friday morning May 28.

The city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was largely emptied of its inhabitants, after the "preventive" evacuation ordered the day before by the authorities due to the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano.

Unlike the last four days, however, the night has experienced a relative lull at the foot of the volcano: earthquakes have decreased in number and intensity, noted an AFP correspondent.

At daybreak, the center of Goma was almost deserted, without the usual activity that takes hold of the city at dawn.

No business was open, only a few rare pedestrians and motorcycle taxis were visible in the streets.

Same scenes in working-class neighborhoods.

Sitting at the entrance to the plots, a few guards stayed here and there to watch over the most beautiful houses, silent and with closed shutters, in the well-to-do neighborhoods on the shores of Lake Kivu.

A few backward families, however, continued to leave the city, most often on foot, travel bags on their heads and children holding hands in single file.

Others by negotiating the price of the trip with a motorcycle taxi.

No particular police or military deployment was visible.

On Thursday, in a sudden exodus, tens of thousands of people fled Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu overlooked by the imposing black slopes of the Nyiragongo, after a "preventive" and "compulsory" evacuation order in the face of risk of a new eruption.

The authorities have put forward "the presence of magma under the urban area of ​​Goma, with an extension under Lake Kivu", with the possibility "of an eruption on land or under the lake without any warning sign".

The government "wanted to preserve the populations living on the path of (possible) lava flows", warning that their return would only take place "when the threat is completely removed".

A team of experts climbed Thursday at the top of the volcano, on the edges of the crater, "to assess the risks and the measures to be taken".

Risks of four types

A first eruption without any warning sign had taken place last Saturday, already causing the sudden flight of the inhabitants, many of whom returned the next day.

Two lava flows had escaped from the flanks of the volcano, one of which came to rest in the northeast suburbs of Goma.

At least 32 people have been killed, and between 900 and 2,500 homes have been destroyed.

The risks are now of four types, according to the authorities: repeated earthquakes, the toxicity of the air and water due to the ash dispersed in the atmosphere, a "secondary eruption" with possibly emerging lava. directly from the ground in the city.

Finally, the "disaster scenario" of the explosion of a "pocket of gas under Lake Kivu, due to contact with magma".

The Goma region is an area of ​​intense volcanic activity, with six volcanoes, including Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira, which culminate at 3,470 and 3,058 meters respectively.

This risk of "limnic eruption", according to the jargon of specialists, has long been clearly identified for Lake Kivu, whose depths contain a lot of methane.

Exodus fear in the belly

The order to evacuate, announced Thursday at dawn by the military governor of North Kivu, General Constant Ndima, took by surprise the population who then rushed out of the city, in a sudden exodus, fear in the belly and in the greatest disorder.

The evacuation concerned in theory only 10 of the 18 districts of Goma - of which the agglomeration is estimated at two million inhabitants -, but it is in fact almost all the inhabitants who decamped on three main axes: towards the Sake locality in the west, towards the Rwandan border in the east, towards the northeast, as well as by boat on the lake.

Nearly 400,000 people are potentially affected by this evacuation, estimated the Ocha, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, in a region, North Kivu, already ravaged by violence from armed groups.

With AFP

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