MillerTheCockroach β Lake Kivu
#africa#democraticrepublicofcongo#lakekivu Published: 2023-10-31 00:02:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 283; Favourites: 1; Downloads: 0 Redirect to originalDescription
Lake Kivu (or Originally in French Lac Kivu), is a huge lake on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo (or just DRC) and Rwanda and one of the largest bodies of water in Africa. Before the lake existed, there was a huge crater more than 300 meters deep in that region millions of years ago, and with the eruptions of the Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira volcanoes, extensive lava flows were created that reached the edges of that crater, covering the path of a river with post-solidified rocks originating from lava flows, and with the accumulation of rainwater, that huge crater began to fill with water, giving rise to what we know as Lake Kivu. Many islands exist in the lake, most of them belonging to DRC, including the largest one, called Idjwi, which is clearly visible in this image in the southern part of the lake. Other smaller islands such as Γle des Cochons can also be found in the lake, although Γle des Cochons is a small volcanic caldera originating from the collapse of a cinder cone. The big problem with this lake is that it is a "time bomb" ready to erupt at any moment, as its waters are full of methane gas from the Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira volcanoes and according to sources, the lake could erupt and release huge clouds of methane gas into the region's atmosphere, which could cause the death of more than 2,000 people living nearby, and as the lake is located in the Rift Valley (a large set of tectonic plates that extends from Eritrea and Djibouti to Mozambique) in a region prone to earthquakes, the risk of this happening is enormous.
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