The Lake Nyos Disaster of 21 August 1986, When a Lake Exhaled and Killed 1,746 People in Their Sleep
On the night of 21 August 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon released an estimated 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in a rare limnic eruption. The invisible, ground-hugging cloud flowed down the valleys and suffocated 1,746 people and some 3,500 head of livestock, most without waking.
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