The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo evacuates the city of Goma due to volcano eruption

The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) activated an evacuation plan this morning for the city of Goma, capital of the North Kivu province, after the eruption this Saturday of the Nyiragongo volcano, located in the Virunga National Park, in the east of the country.

“Faced with this situation, the panic observed, the Prime Minister, Jean Michel Sama Lukon, called a crisis meeting with all the ministers. After having made an assessment of the situation (…) the contingency plan, the evacuation plan has been launched,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya told the media early this Sunday morning.

As Muyaya explained on his Twitter account, “local authorities who have been monitoring the eruption overnight report that the lava flow has lost intensity and some earthquakes. The assessment of the humanitarian situation is ongoing.”

Some 3,500 people arrived overnight in the Rwandan town of Rubavu, located near the border with the DRC, the country's Ministry of Emergency Management reported on Twitter.

Around seven in the afternoon local time (16:00 GMT) on Saturday, the eruption of the volcano began, which is one of the most active in the world and is usually ascended by tourists who want to contemplate the lava lake housed in its crater, confirmed by phone to Efe Kasereka, who runs the Volcanological Observatory in the city of Goma, located about 20 kilometers from the volcano.

According to the scientist, “from the direction of the lava, it doesn't seem like it's going to enter Goma but people are scared and are moving,” but later a new breach opened in the volcano that put the city in danger.

On May 11, the Observatory already warned in a report on the situation of the volcanoes of the Virunga mountain range -Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo- that the two “are very active, particularly Nyiragongo, where some sporadic hybrid earthquakes are observed”. .

“This activity has not yet affected inhabited areas, but they deserve particular follow-up attention,” the Observatory recommended in its report.. Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo last erupted in 2002, forcing an estimated 300,000 people to flee lava “floods” that blanketed much of Goma and killed around 200 people.

Virunga, located in the province of North Kivu (east), one of the most affected by violence in the DRC, is one of the few tourist destinations in this Central African nation, and has been a World Heritage Site since 1979.