{"id":241857,"date":"2026-08-22T20:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/cameroon-an-invisible-avalanche-what-happened-in-cameroons-1986-lake-nyos-disaster\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T20:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T18:37:12","slug":"cameroon-an-invisible-avalanche-what-happened-in-cameroons-1986-lake-nyos-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/cameroon-an-invisible-avalanche-what-happened-in-cameroons-1986-lake-nyos-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameroon: &#8216;An Invisible Avalanche&#8217; &#8211; What Happened in Cameroon&#8217;s 1986 Lake Nyos Disaster?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"52\"><em> On 21 August, 1986, 1,746 people died from carbon dioxide poisoning after gas escaped overnight from the bottom of Lake Nyos in Cameroon. RFI examines what happened in the world&#8217;s deadliest &#8220;limnic eruption&#8221; and how, 40 years later, our understanding of the danger posed by volcanic lakes is still evolving. <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"33\">The village of Nyos, in north-west <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/tag\/cameroon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cameroon<\/a>, was a peaceful place. On that day, its people carried out their work as usual &#8211; some in the fields, others leading cattle out to pasture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"45\">The&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202608220071.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa <a title=\"Cameroon\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/west-africa\/cameroon\/\">Cameroon<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 21 August, 1986, 1,746 people died from carbon dioxide poisoning after gas escaped overnight from the bottom of Lake Nyos in Cameroon. RFI examines what happened in the world&#8217;s deadliest &#8220;limnic eruption&#8221; and how, 40 years later, our understanding of the danger posed by volcanic lakes is still evolving. The village of Nyos, in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":241858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00690214:1dcd3bdaf2cbca27226e391d18d973d0:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[258,256,55246,4698,377,4331,8985,5041,17331,6920,257,55247,254],"class_list":["post-241857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameroon","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-avalanche","tag-cameroon","tag-cameroon-news","tag-cameroons","tag-disaster","tag-happened","tag-invisible","tag-lake","tag-news","tag-nyos","tag-south-africa-today"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/download\/pic\/main\/main\/csiid\/00690214:1dcd3bdaf2cbca27226e391d18d973d0:arc614x376:w1200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}