{"id":6325,"date":"2022-02-12T01:49:12","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T01:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/science\/what-are-killer-lakes-myth-or-reality\/"},"modified":"2022-02-12T01:49:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T01:49:12","slug":"what-are-killer-lakes-myth-or-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/science\/what-are-killer-lakes-myth-or-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"What are killer lakes? Myth or Reality?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Earth, our planet and home in the Universe, is a refuge in the midst of the immensity of the void. A place where, after billions of years, the conditions have been met to separate us from the harshness of the Cosmos, thus allowing life to proliferate, expand and evolve. The Earth is an oasis in the Universe. And although our home provides us with all the necessary conditions for us to live in it, there are times when it becomes our worst enemy.<\/p>\n

There are many climatological or geological phenomena that represent a danger to life. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes... All these events are proof that the Earth can become, in the blink of an eye, a threat to life<\/strong>. But beyond this, these phenomena are well known to science. We understand their origin and they have been documented and detailed for centuries.<\/p>\n

But as much as we believe that we have unveiled all the mysteries of our planet, the Earth continues to keep many secrets in its bowels. Some time ago we talked about monster waves. Some vertical walls of water that could reach 30 meters high and that rose suddenly even in calm seas, sweeping away any boat. Considered for centuries as a legend, it was not until 1995, with the event of the Draupner station, which recorded one of these giant waves, that we stopped seeing these monster waves as myths of sailors and began to accept their existence.<\/p>\n

But even something as terrifying as this dwarfs next to what is surely the most terrifying mystery in Geology.<\/strong>. A phenomenon that science was completely unaware of until the 1980s when what is considered the most terrifying geological event in history took place. 1,800 people in a Cameroonian town were found dead without any explanation.<\/p>\n

The cause of death, suffocation. And all the clues led to the same destination. The lake near the town. Something in him had killed those people. At that time, the world met those who were baptized as killer lakes. The concept was born and a race to understand the nature of this tragedy began. A race that was going to give us more questions than answers and the answers it would give us would be halfway between science and legend. Let's dive into the secrets of the killer lakes.<\/p>\n

The Lake Nyos tragedy in 1986<\/h2>\n

Upper Nyos. Cameroon. August 21, 1986. Lake Nyos, a lake in northwestern Cameroon originating from the flooding of a volcanic crater, was, as usual, calm, with the moon reflecting off its blue waters and illuminating the surrounding valley. . Ephriam Che, a young Cameroonian farmer, while resting in his house built on a cliff above the lake, heard a loud crash.<\/p>\n

He thought it was a landslide and, worried about the houses located in the lower areas of the valley, he went out to see what had happened.<\/strong>. But she didn't see anything. Nothing except a strange whitish mist that levitated above the surface of the lake. Without giving it much importance and attributing the noise to the fact that a strong storm was coming, she sent her four children to take shelter in the house. It was 9 pm. And Ephriam, already in her bed, began to feel dizzy and unwell. But nothing to stop him from falling asleep.<\/p>\n

Ephriam woke up at dawn. The feeling of dizziness continued, but like every day, she prepared to go down the cliff towards the town. With the first light of dawn, she saw that the crystal clear blue waters of the lake had taken on a strange reddish hue that she did not remember ever seeing. Something inside him told him something was up.<\/p>\n

And then, the purest silence. An eerie silence she had never felt before. People were not listened to. No birds were heard. There was no buzzing of mosquitoes. Any. At that moment, terror invaded his body and he ran towards the village. Only to discover the horror<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Dozens of inert bodies, men, women, children and the elderly, collapsed and scattered on the ground. Ephriam tried to revive those she was with. But she couldn't. They were all dead. All 30 inhabitants of Upper Nyos had perished. And on the outskirts of town, 400 cows also dead. Ephriam, even before that macabre scene and seeing those who were her dead friends on the ground, realized something that ended up freezing her blood. There weren't even flies on the corpses. The flies had also died.<\/p>\n

In a panic, he ran to the town of Lower Nyos, located further down the hill, where more than a thousand people lived, including his parents, siblings, uncles and aunts, to tell what had happened. But when she got there, she discovered what he himself, some time later, defined as the end of the world. More than a thousand corpses scattered on the ground. Not a single drop of blood or the slightest hint of violence. The whole town had simply collapsed. Ephriam had been the sole survivor of the Lake Nyos tragedy<\/strong>. A tragedy that, obviously, set off alarms around the world.<\/p>\n

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