40 Years After Lake Nyos Disaster, Survivors Still Struggle to Rebuild Their Lives

By Tata Mbunwe

Forty years after a deadly cloud of toxic gas swept through the Lake Nyos valley in Menchum Division of the North West, survivors are still struggling with the consequences of a disaster that wiped out entire families and disrupted life in one of Cameroon’s most devastated communities.

The Lake Nyos disaster occurred on August 21, 1986, and killed between 1,700 to 1,800 people in Nyos and neighbouring communities after an explosion in the crater lake emitted carbon dioxide.

The outburst also released floods of water that flattened vegetation and destroyed crops in farms around the lake.

Some 3,000 livestock also died, according to estimates, leaving survivors to return to homes where, in many cases, there was little left to rebuild.

For the Fon of Nyos, HRM Richard Kimbi Chuh, the community has never returned to the life it knew before the disaster.

“Things are not really fine compared to how they were before the incident happened, reason being that my people have come back to start life afresh,” Fon Chuh said in a CRTV interview.

Some survivors returned years later to the compounds of relatives and began cultivating the land again. But reconstructing lives after living away for years has proven difficult, the traditional ruler said.

“Remember that if you leave your home and travel outside and stay for a long time when you come back you are starting everything afresh,” he said.

“That is why life is not the same, because before the incident happened, Nyos people were very rich. They had just everything; they had no problem. But after the incident, life is not the same.”

‘Everything Was Dead’

For survivors, the disaster left an unforgettable memory of devastation. Whole families were wiped out, people died in their sleep, others while eating, some while returning from the farm and others while looking after their flock.

Ma Prudencia, who was eight months pregnant when the disaster occurred, recalls hearing unusual tremors just before the disaster but she did not understand what was happening.

“It came like a wind. We heard tremors on the ground but did not know what was happening. That was around 8pm to 11 pm. I was pregnant. But the person who discovered it in the morning was my husband,” she said in Pidgin.

By morning, August 22, 1986, the scale of the tragedy had become apparent. The lake had a dark-brown color and a haunting silence settled on Nyos—no chirping of birds, no human activity, no mooing of cattle.

“Everything was dead, birds, chicken, all the animals,” Ma Prudencia recalled.

Her husband, who left the house that morning to supply honey to a relative on the other side of the lake, encountered only one person alive among the devastation, according to her account.

The man, she said, was crying that he was the only surviving member of his family before later collapsing and dying.

Prudencia said some victims were found where they had been carrying out ordinary activities when the gas struck.

“There were some people who died while eating. Others were cooking and died on the spot,” she said.

She also lost her entire family.

“My entire family was here. I was eight months pregnant. My husband lived again for about two years after the disaster and died. I was left alone without any father, mother, aunt or uncle. All my relatives were dead,” she said.

The disaster also destroyed livelihoods, with crops swept away from farms in the aftermath.

“The lake overflowed, sweeping away crops from our farms, groundnut, maize,” Prudencia recalled.

She and her husband probably survived because they lived on the upper side of the lake. Almost everything that lived in the lower part of the lake, called the Nyos Valley, died that night.

Fon Chuh said the toxic gas from the lake flowed downwards and killed everything on its way that had the breath of life.

A Community Rebuilding From Loss

Fon Richard Kimbi Chuh was away in Wum when the disaster occurred. Returning to the Nyos area the next morning, he said the first signs of what had happened were dead animals.

“That incident happened when I was in Wum. But coming from Wum the following day, that was on the 22nd of August 1986, Acha, that is where we started seeing dead animals,” he recalled.

The tragedy occurred in the night of a market day in the Nyos Valley, when many people were home after having gathered and gone about their normal activities.

The Fon said the sudden release from the lake caught people unaware, with the toxic gas spreading through the valley.

Many of those who survived were displaced from their ancestral homes for years. When some eventually returned, they had to begin rebuilding their livelihoods from almost nothing.

Forty years later, the effects of Lake Nyos disaster remain visible in the struggles of residents who returned to Nyos.

Remembering the Dead

Aside from the economic difficulties, which have been compounded by the ongoing armed conflict in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, the disaster has left a lasting cultural and emotional toll on the community.

Each year, the Fon leads elders and villagers in a traditional ritual known as “Atsou van nke,” which is intended to cleanse the lake before activities can take place.

The ritual also provides an opportunity for the Nyos people to communicate with and appease their ancestors.

For survivors and their descendants, the annual remembrance bears an extraordinary significance. To them, it is a way of keeping alive the memory of those who died and reconnecting with a community whose history was permanently altered in one night.

Four decades on, the Lake Nyos disaster remains one of the deadliest natural disasters in Cameroon’s history. But for those who survived it, its impact is not tied to the events of August 21, 1986.