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Aug. 21, 1986: Volcanic Lake Explodes, Killing Thousands: “

SCIENCE  :  DISCOVERIES  
Aug. 21, 1986: Volcanic Lake Explodes, Killing Thousands
By Randy Alfred 7 Hours Ago

The waters of Lake Nyos, Cameroon, turned a murky brown following a deadly release of toxic gas in August 1986.
Photo: Thierry Orban/Corbis Sygma
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1986: A deadly cloud of carbon dioxide sweeps down the slopes of an African volcano, smothering more than 1,700 people.
Volcanoes can kill in many ways, but this one is pretty weird. A volcanic lake in the West African nation of Cameroon degassed violently (you could say it burped, or worse) in the middle of the night. Carbon dioxide is odorless and heavier than air. Most of the victims died in their sleep.
Lake Nyos sits in the crater of a volcano that hadn’t erupted in centuries … and probably didn’t actually erupt the night of Aug. 21, 1986.
Magma deep underneath the lake releases carbon dioxide into its depths. Lake Nyos is 690-feet deep, enough for the water pressure to keep the CO2 dissolved in the “

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