Lake Nyos

Sep. 9th, 2014 01:45 am
aggienaut: (Nuke / Clango)
Cameroon, 1986

   On hot humid summer nights such as this, Joseph was fond of sitting on the shore of Lake Nyos and watching the moon and stars reflect off the still waters. A cool refreshing breeze blew gently off the silent lake. Lightning flickered beyond nearby mountains, as it almost always did. Insects chirped in the darkness.
   Some rocks tumbled down the steep sides of the valley and splashed into the lake, sending little ripples across the mirror-like surface. Joseph watched the moon become warped and dance on the water before reforming. It was nice to get away from the hubbub of the village and come up here to the peaceful lake.
   More rocks began to tumble down the cliff on the far side, and suddenly with a great rumble a large landslide cascaded down into the water. Bigger ripples this time spread in expanding circles across the lake, taking several minutes to lap at the shore by Joseph in little waves. The moon on the water became a vague kaleidoscope of light. Once again the dancing reflections slowly came back together, restoring the lake's famous placidity. During the day it would be a beautiful shade of blue.
   Something odd caught Joseph's attention. The water wasn't entirely still now, little ripples reminiscent of a current had formed. But Lake Nyos never has a current, he thought to himself. Joseph couldn't see the currents on the further parts of the black mirror of the lake, but on this shore it seemed to be flowing out from the center. And then there was a strange sulfury smell he had never smelled from the lake in all his many years of living here. This was very odd. Joseph stood up.
   From the depths little flecks of silver began to appear, and soon they were popping onto the surface all over the lake in the form of dead fish. Silvery fish were rising from the cold dark depths in the moonlight. This was very alarming. It was very late, many in the village down the valley had gone to bed already, but Joseph was thinking he should probably tell one of the village elders about this strange occurrence. Was it some kind of sign from the spirits of the lake? Joseph considered himself a good christian, but lake spirits are a fact of nature.
   Suddenly there was a great rolling rumble and an enormous geyser of frothy water exploded out of the middle of the lake and shot hundreds of feet into the air. In his shock Joseph tripped and fell backwards into some shrubbery. He lay there, mouth agape at the spectacle. Then he realized there was a huge wave rolling towards the shore from where the tower of foam was still shooting out of the water, and he scrambled desperately up the embankment. Glancing over his shoulder after climbing some thirty feet he saw the onrushing wave still towering over him and banged his knee on a rock as he desperately scrambled further. The wave broke with a crash below him and the water rushed up and knocked him over, feeling cold and evil. It pushed him into a bramble and then tried to pull him back over the rocks into the lake's roiling heart, but he clung on and was left among the broken trees and twitching fish.

   He stared back down at the lake, there were still large waves rocking back and forth between the center and the outer edges but nothing like that first tsunami, nothing that would reach his elevated position now. On the lowest part of the bank, a natural dam separated the lake from the lower valley, and the wave had sloshed over the brim there.
   The column of froth dwindled away, but it had by now disgorged a large cloud hanging just above the lake, looking heavy and ominous, and blotting out the moonlight. It smelled tinny and sulfuric. As Joseph watched, the cloud seemed to settle down onto the lake surface. Joseph began to choke and feel sick, and scrambled further up the slope until he was above the settling cloud. It filled the valley over the lake like an eerie milk. At the lower end it began to slip over the natural damn, and then the whole thing started to rush that way like a liquid draining from a basin. Joseph remembered how it had made him choke and was suddenly filled with fear for his wife and children and friends in the village.
   He jumped up and immediately fell back down, feeling weak and nauseous. He was filled with terror for his family though, and forced himself back up and stumbled down the slope. As he neared the lake the smell got stronger and his breath began to feel short, so he stayed on the ridge descending toward the natural dam and angled his path on the outer side of it. The main part of the cloud seemed to have rapidly slid down the valley but an ominous vague white haze remained in its path. Joseph stumbled as quickly as he could down the valley towards the village, ignoring his bruised and hurting knees, his throbbing headache, and the noxious smell. He passed some vague dark shapes and realized they were goats, collapsed motionless on the ground. His heart in his throat he pushed himself harder, his lungs burning. Closer to the village he passed the larger shapes of cows, their large straight horns jutting up from the ground at odd angles as if they'd crashed. Joseph had to lean against a tree and struggle to catch his breath. He could barely breath and his whole body felt on fire. The stink of sulfur was overpowering. He forced his failing body to shamble the last hundred feet to the nearest huts in the village, but he could already see bodies on the ground, human bodies. He tried to make it to his own hut but he felt like no matter how hard he breathed he just couldn't get enough air, and despite his determination he was getting sleepy, so very sleepy. He crossed the village square and saw his family's hut twenty feet ahead in the moonlight, but he fell to his knees and his eyes lost focus, he clutched at his neck, he felt like he was suffocating, even while he gasped great gulps of air. With the ringing in his ears, he was able to bring his hut into focus again for half as second before it all went black, and he felt himself falling face first forward.

***

   Everything hurt. His body hurt, his lungs hurt, his mouth was incredibly dry, he had a splitting headache, and he had this strange sensation like he was swinging through the air. And hanging, as if being held by the ankles and arms. Was this some kind of afterlife? He became aware of the heat of the sun on his skin, and the movement of fresh air against his body. Suddenly he was airborn. He managed to open his eyes just a crack, they were swollen and hurt, and saw the blue sky careening above him and then he landed in soft dirt, a landing that would have been painful if he could have felt any more pain. He let his eyes close again and lay there awkwardly where he had landed. Then some dirt landed on his stomach, and he heard a scraping noise. A shovel on dirt, and another shovelful of dirt landed on his chest. He registered voices, and then some dirt rained down on his face. He groaned and attempted to move, but apparently no one noticed, and another shovelful landed on him. He attempted to move his left arm but realized it had been buried already and he hadn't even noticed. He managed to open his swollen eye enough to make out people with medical masks above him filling in the hole -- he was being buried with the dead.
   He put all his effort into letting out a moan loud enough to be heard. There was the scrape of another shovel and then rocky soil hit him right in the face.
   Then someone was brushing it away and there was a calloused hand on his neck, feeling for a pulse. "wait, wait! this one's alive!" a voice just above him called out.

***

On the night of August 21st, 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon explosively ejected an estimated third of a cubic mile of carbon dioxide and other gasses, which killed 1700 people in neighboring villages. It is believed it shot a fountain of water over 300 feet in the air, caused an 80 foot tsunami on the lake, and then sent a poisonous cloud down the valley at sixty miles an hour. Some survivors awoke thirty hours later to find everyone around them dead.

Read more on wikipedia
Or in [livejournal.com profile] furzicle's corresponding entry.

Before:


Immediately after:

Kolan River

Feb. 8th, 2013 02:15 am
aggienaut: (Numbat)

   It wasn't until the howling sideways rain finished that the floods truly began. Sure, streets had flooded with the immense amounts of water that fell locally, but it wasn't until the immense amounts of water that fell inland got here that we learned what flooding truly was.

   Monday morning we all awoke to a nice sunny day. People cautiously began to venture out of their houses and look around at the damage. In the tiny community Avondale (pop. 720), across the Kolan River from Moore Park, this included staring at amazement at the trees that had been twisted and shattered by a tornado which had touched down during the storm and passed right between two houses. The normally placid Kolan River was a raging brown torrent carrying away entire trees ... and a very unfortunate number of hapless cows tumbling down from somewhere up river.

   Fortunately the river is in a relatively deep gorge, because it keeps rising as the hours go by, reaching heights never seen before. Power is out and neighbors are checking on eachother and helping eachother with any urgent repairs.

   The nearest town (and stores), Bundaberg, is twenty kilometers away, across two large rivers. Soon people are saying that the bridge across the Kolan river just upstream, some 60 feet over the normal water level is underwater.

   It's a strange sort of slow motion natural disaster. The sun is out and the winds are calm, but the river keeps rising, and from height places you can see large swaths of fields (and the farm houses in them) disappearing under water. By the evening they're saying it's the largest evacuation in Australian history in Bundaberg, that North Bundaberg was about washed off the map -- the roof of the grocery store had even disappeared under water.

   Wednesday, with the waters falling John decided to see if he could get across the river. The bridge was by-now clear of water again, and looked fine though thoroughly caked in brown mud. The road was blocked off by the roadhouse, and the roadhouse owner / local volunteer emergency services coordinator was arguing with some people:
   "No, I can't let you across mate, it's a liability"
   "This is an EMERGENCY! And I need to get across to get medication for my wife!"
   "I'm sorry sir but I can't let anyone across that bridge, see where the road is washed out right before it?"
   At this point another man pipes in: "I have a backhoe, I'll bring it back here and fill that hole for you right now"
   "No, you can't do that, it's a state road, it's gotta be repaired by state contractors..."

   Everyone looked up at the sound of someone gunning an engine, and watched a four-wheel drive pickup avoid the road block by going through the nearby avocado orchard, get back on the road, and speed across the bridge and out of sight.


   John went into the roadhouse, which had a little shop with basic groceries. He was shocked to find prices marked up 800% or more on everything. There was even expired baby food for exorbitant prices, and pineapples that looked inedibly unripe. Disgusted, he returned home.




   On Sunday I drove across the Kolan River bridge myself, it was still very brown, and the destruction around the banks was amazing. The hole in the road had been filled. My friend Brian*, on whose property we have some beehives, told me these and many other stories about the floods on their side of the river. He has a small field of squash and he had brought a large bin of them to the roadhouse and placed them outside with a sign that said "free" to help out everyone stranded by the floods... but within an hour the bin had been brought inside the roadhouse and was being sold for the tremendous profit of the owner.

   He did have a heartwarming story though. There was a woman who lived nearby in the forests of Invicta, alone while her husband was out working in the mines in Western Australia. With the phones out, he couldn't get ahold of her, and was naturally extremely worried. So a friend of his rode a quad bike through the storm, more than 20 miles across soggy fields and washed out roads, to go check on her for him.

   Natural disasters always bring out the very best ... and sometimes the very worst in people.

*normally I'm opposed to changing people's names, but as he was telling me true stories about real people in the area I figure I better.



This is "Smith's Crossing" over the Kolan River earlier in the year. The road here washed out some previous year and was never repaired.


This is the same spot on Sunday -- except where I took the first picture is deep in the water now, probably about where that log is. I don't know what the river topped out at, all I can find on google is a flood warning on Wednesday advising it was at 18.54 meters (60 ft) and falling.

aggienaut: (Fiah)
This picture is out of order, but the frothiness shall be explained presently

   You can usually see it coming, a solid wall of grey stretching from the ground all the way up to the clouds. Its just a few miles across, so you can see blue sky on either side of it. Sometimes it passes right by you. I've watched two of them pass on either side of me, flashing with lightning, without feeling a drop.

a rain squall out at sea

   When I'm in its path though, I can watch the tomato field disappear into the grey as it approaches, hear the approaching sound of rain hitting the plants. When it's about to hit me I put the lid on the last hive I was working on, cover everything that shouldn't get wet, and jump in the cab of my truck as the wall of water hits. I sit there and enjoy the fresh coolness the rain brings to the air, the wonderful smell of fresh rain on dirt, and then, in about ten minutes, its over as quickly as it started. In its wake it leaves a stifling high level of humidity. In an hour the water has all evaporated and you'd never know the rain squall passed through.

   For awhile these things seemed to come through like clockwork at around 9am every morning.

   "Yehh, we haven't gotten any rain this summer, it's been dry as" says Trevor, standing barefoot in the dry red dirt next to the chili fields. Nothing's flowering, the bees aren't packing away any honey. The lagoons and reservoirs are drying up. We'd only gotten 7mm of rain compared to an average of 173 (6.8 inches) for that point in January.
   These little rain squalls don't even show up on the weather report. I guess they really don't count for anything. Back home in California it either rains or it doesn't.

   Finally one morning I looked at the weather report and it had "heavy rain" for every day of the next week. "Well, that should get things going" I thought. Looking at the satellite image, a huge ominous spiral of cloud hundreds of miles across was just above us. Seemed a bit alarming, but no one seemed concerned.
   I woke up at my usual time on Friday, but it was clearly pouring and the forecast was for it to continue all day, so I just sat back and drank my coffee. Trevor called and asked what I was up to "just watching the rain," I said,
   "Ah, yehh, no worries. Hey since you won't be working in this why don't you bring your ute down here some time today and we'll have the mechanic service it."
   So I took a leisurely morning finishing my coffee and about two hours later dropped off my truck on the farm and was driven back home.
   And it kept raining, and raining. 4 inches (102mm) had fallen out of the sky by the end of the day.

   The next day was Saturday, January 26th, "Australia Day." Once again I got up at the usual time and watched the rain pouring and pouring outside. It being Australia Day, I thought I ought to see what festivities were afoot, so I called the "courtesy shuttle" of the local restaurant-tavern at the corner of town and asked them to come pick me up.
   "This is a bit full on isn't it?" I commented to the driver about the rain.
   "Yeah, we usually get heavy rains in January but we expected them earlier. The road out of town will probably be closed in half an hour though, and I live in Bundaberg, so I'm about to evacuate myself."
   There were a lot of families at the tavern, but nothing particularly exciting. I had a burger the Australian way (with an egg on it) to celebrate Australia Day, and reconfirmed that an egg absolutely does not belong on a burger. Took the courtesy shuttle back and found my street to be under a minimum of a foot of water. The new driver commented that they probably wouldn't be able to continue the courtesy shuttle service much longer. I rolled up my pantlegs and jumped out of shuttle into water halfway to my knees.
   And it continued to rain and rain. During a calmer moment I saw the neighbor kids out swimming in the street. Literally swimming. 4.6 inches (118mm) fell on Saturday.

   Sunday morning I awoke with a start to the sound of a high pitched warning alarm. I dashed out of bed to find my smoke alarm going off... for no particular reason. Going to turn on a light though I found the power was out. I picked up my phone but it was dead. It was raining lightly at the time but I looked out my window and was shocked and concerned to see that my street appeared to actually have a current now, flowing like a river.
   I turned on my laptop but it informed me the battery was at 0% (I'd left it on but when unplugged its supposed to turn itself off after 20 minutes, I don't know why it didn't). I hastily checked the weather report and saw a predicted 10 inches (252mm) of rain, before the laptop shut itself off. Leaving me sitting there in disbelief. The average January rainfall is 173mm and we're supposed to get 252 IN ONE DAY???

   Throughout most of the day I watched the rain coming pretty much horizontally past the kitchen window, and every ten minutes or so mopped up all the water that had come in under the door (and I had all my roommates towels there to try to stop it!). I bottled the 30 liters of beer I had been procrastinating bottling, started another batch brewing, read some dry materials I'd been meaning to read about bee diseases, and read some of a book ("Emperor" by Conn Iggulden). Ventured out every now and then, only daring to use the downwind door to the house. Though the street was a canal, it didn't appear to be threatening to flood the house. In exposed areas it was hard to even look in the direction the rain was coming from. The power came back in the late afternoon, reinstating my connection with the world (though my phone problem was inexplicable and it wouldn't charge).
   Looking at the news I learn that tornadoes have crashed through three of the neighboring communities.

   Monday morning I awoke to find it nice and sunny outside. Rain was still throughout the forecast so I waited a few hours, but no rain appeared. Called my boss via skype
   "Nah, the roads are still out, probably not today mate. I'll call y-- oh wait I can't -- okay call tomorrow morning and we'll get you back to your ute."
   Walking down to the beach I found a ridiculous amount of foam had piled up in huge drifts. The weirdest part was if you waded into it, it was quite warm!

the foam around the 'surf lifesaving club'

   Weather stayed nice (well, uncomfortably hot and sunny) all day, and I went to bed that night looking forward to finally getting back to work the next day.
   At 1am my phone announced it was back to life by playing the morning wakeup alarm. Thinks its clever does it.
   The next morning (Tuesday) I got up and got ready for work. This time there wasn't even any rain in the forecast. Called Trevor at 0700,
   "Oh hey, Kris, how are you today?"
   "Oh I'm pretty good, how are you?"
   "I'm up to my waist here in water down at my house! Packing the last of my things and we're evacuating!"
   "What??"
   "Yehh mate, the whole area here is flooded. Lived 'ere my whole life and oI've never seen anything like it!"
   He said to call him in a few days when the waters have receded. I must say I was a bit shocked that even having his home and farm completely flooded didn't knock down his cheerful demeanor. As I digested this news it also registered with me that (A) a minimum of the three bee trailers by his house, possibly nearly all of them, may have been wiped out by the flood, (B) my work truck, unless he had someone drive it to safety, may be destroyed.

   Looking at the news, I found the nearby town of Bundaberg (through which one must travel to get anywhere else in civilization from Moore Park here) had been flooded, with 17 helicopters working around the clock to pull 7000 people off rooftops.
   Walking on the beach (it was another sunny day) I found three different people in the act of relocating clutches of sea turtle eggs that had become exposed, digging a new hole in higher ground and carefully redepositing them.

locals relocating sea turtle eggs

   Attempting to walk to the shops, I found my normal path through the lagoon to be too deep for travel.

normally-dry path through the lagoon

   Wednesday morning, while I'm out gathering coconuts on the beach I note that there's a bunch of refugees from Bundaberg sitting in folding chairs in the park by the beach.
   "We're very lucky! Most of the evacuees are crammed in a school in [unpronouncable place I've never heard of]" a man says to me, as he pours water on the large black and white cat panting in the grass at his feet. The cat does not object. "And the people evacuated by helicopter all had to leave their pets behind! Old Jervis here doesn't like the interruption to his life but he's very lucky!"
   I walk to the shops and this time there's even ankle deep water across the road over the lagoon. You see, Moore Park Beach has a lagoon along the middle of it with only a few crossings, which never seemed like a problem before....
   While at that corner of town I confirm with my own eyes that the road out of town is lost under a vast lake of brown water. We're officially an island! Where said main road continues from the corner shops into the interior of Moore Park it is also flooded at the lagoon. The grocery store was a bit surreal itself, with rows and rows of empty shelves, and busier than usual with the influx of evacuees from Bundaberg. I cleared out the last of their canned food.
   "They say the bridge across the Burnett River is washed out in Bundaberg" Sean, who runs the pizza place next to the grocery store, informs me. "I'll probably have to close up shop after today, and the grocery store's only going to be getting resupplied by airdrops if the bridge is out."

soon this road too will be unpassable at this rate!

   On my way back home an army blackhawk (with pontoons) was landing in the field in the center of town as an emergency rescue helicopter took off.
   "Maybe its worse than they thought" a bystander comments to me.

   At the time of this writing (Wednesday evening) the Burnett river is said to have topped out at 31 feet (9.53 meters), breaking all records. Waters still seem to be rising here though as the water slowly spills across the fields. At the present moment it is raining.

   I think I'm going to appreciate the quick passing squalls a lot more now!

This is what most of the surrounding area looks like

See also: this entry where I posted a few pictures from the news showing the extent of the devastation in Bundaberg.

EPILOGUE: Friday

aggienaut: (Fiah)
Here's a roundup of some photos from the local newspaper.



I'm presently effectively on an island. Bundaberg --which is my link to the rest of the world-- is currently undergoing a massive airlift evacuation involving 12 helicopters (as well as a lot of little boats).



I called my boss and he said it's waist deep at his house, he's presently in the act of saving what he can and evacuating.



This is what the Burnett Railway Bridge usually looks like:



And this is what it currently looks like




As to the bees, its pretty flat out there so its hard to say what's high enough ground and what isn't. There are three trailers near the house which I'm sure are fucked. Most of the other trailers are in other fields in the area. Also the extracting shed and the stores of all the honey we've extracted already might be fucked. If all that is FUBAR, I'm not sure I'll even have a job anymore after this.


Anyway here's an article from the Bundaberg newspaper about the floods in Bundaberg. ("nine meter floodwaters!")
aggienaut: (Numbat)
In happier times:



Yesterday:









   Yesterday my day began at 6:30 with my smoke alarm going off. I'm not sure why, I did a thorough investigation and found no source of smoke. But it set an alarming tone for the day. Then I found that the power was out, and it remained off for at least eight hours. AND my phone chose to die at the same time, leaving me with no communication with the world at all.
   Weather actually turned out to be pretty decent. Went out walking for half an hour ... and got surprisingly sunburned! Since the power was out, and the roads out of town still out, and there was storm damage to see, it seemed about the whole community was out walking around. I took a bunch of pictures of the huge drifts of foam along the beach. Cyclone Ozwald was literally frothing at the mouth!!
   I went walking later in the afternoon when the ocean had calmed down a bit and found no less than three people at different places relocating clutches of seaturtle eggs which had become exposed.

   The weather has cleared up here a lot, though there's still a lot of flooding as water comes down the pipeline from inland, and the storm is still hammering areas south of here. In Bundaberg, the nearest town, I'm told helicopters are picking people off roofs!

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