Mondo Knows Facts
A Cameroon lake released a cloud of carbon dioxide
In 1986 gas seeping from Lake Nyos suffocated people and livestock in nearby valleys The lake sits in a volcanic crater and its deep water had become saturated with carbon dioxide from below. A disturbance released the gas suddenly, and being denser than air it flowed downhill through the villages. Around 1,700 people died in one of the deadliest natural events of the century. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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🗺️ World Geographyfact 163 of 200
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Tags: lakes, volcanoes, hazards
A Cameroon lake released a cloud of carbon dioxide: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- In 1986 gas seeping from Lake Nyos suffocated people and livestock in nearby valleys. The figure is taken from USGS, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a world geography fact?
- Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.