Killer Earth
Killer Earth
Lake Nyos
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We're back!!! We didn't break up or die. We just didn't get our shit together to get new episodes up until now.
On this comeback episode of Killer Earth, Kat and Vanessa discuss the deadliest lake in the world, Cameroon's Lake Nyos. Did you know a lake can kill you just by being near it? Neither did we!
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Thank you and we love you all!
Earthquakes, lightning, pouring rain, tornadoes, not means in a hurricane.
unknownKiller.
SPEAKER_03Hi, we didn't die, guys. We're here. We did not die.
SPEAKER_04We're alive. We took a hiatus.
SPEAKER_02We have no excuses.
SPEAKER_03No excuses as usual.
SPEAKER_02Uh, we had a lot of nice emails from our fans though that were like, please come back. So we appreciate that. That was really cool.
SPEAKER_04We did. We got emails and messages from people. You had like a little mini intervention at a restaurant.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02With some of your friends. One of my friends was like, You cannot stop doing this. I'm like, we're not stopping. We're just busy.
SPEAKER_04So, yeah. I definitely had a few people be like, didn't you have a podcast? I was like, um, had have. I think it's more my fault if you like really percentaged it out.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean, it is what it is. But we're here. We are so excited. Uh, it's 2022. So happy new year, everyone.
SPEAKER_04You you went to Iceland.
SPEAKER_02I went to Iceland in October, which I think was like actually the problem that like started a whole ricochet of not recording because I did go out of town. You but you were only gone for like seven days. I know, but then it's like we got out of a groove. My bad.
SPEAKER_04I guess. I don't know. I just kept like putting it off because I just wasn't, I don't know, managing my time well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, here we are, and I'm really feeling myself tonight.
SPEAKER_04Really? What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02Well, I like I never do this when we podcast, but I like turn down all the lights. I have like candles going, I have my salt lamp like lit up, and I have my aromatherapy going. It's like a whole mood. You have is it peanut the salt lamp? No, it's not. No, it's a it's um a regular salt lamp. Okay, you know, like a circular oval one.
SPEAKER_04You used to have a I'm not a freak, like you used to have an elephant-shaped salt lamp named Peanut.
SPEAKER_02I know. Did you not? No, I didn't have one, I wanted one. Oh, I wanted, remember? Oh, yeah, you stole it from Kate. I stole it from Kate, but then she took it back from me.
SPEAKER_04I think okay. I I you okay, yes, that's the story. You stole it from our friend Kate. It was her lamp. Okay, I messed up that story.
SPEAKER_02I like I stole it, but then she was like, No, this is mine, and took it back.
SPEAKER_04And I was like, I mean, but I thought she said I could like borrow it, which you were, but probably you know, there's always like a time limit for borrowing. Yeah, gotta give it back at some point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Bernie, it's like a Himalayan like salt lamp that was in the shape of an elephant, and I named it peanut, or maybe Kate named it peanut, and I I don't know.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, so you have like a little sanctuary going, yeah, it's like a vibe. I do too right now because I had my daughter's fifth birthday at my house a few days ago. Happy birthday, Lola, our spokesperson, and I strung up all these lights everywhere, so I'm in like a cute like leftover birthday party.
SPEAKER_02And didn't you light a candle too?
SPEAKER_04I did, I lit a candle, and I'm having a drink. Um I did not make a New Year's resolution to stop drinking.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's okay. I'm on day what's today, the third. I'm on day three of no drinking. I'm just taking a detox. Oh, okay. It's not like a resolution.
SPEAKER_01No, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh I it's just like a I like to take my detoxes.
SPEAKER_04So, what is your resolution?
SPEAKER_02Um, I don't really have one. I guess just like happiness, you know? Yeah, like self-care and happiness. Like today, I like did a mask and like got a pedicure. Like, I'm trying to do something every day that's like self-care. And I'll I usually do yoga. And if I'm not gonna do yoga, then I'm gonna do something else. So that's kind of my my vibe.
SPEAKER_04Our friend Mandy sent me this meme. I think it was a meme, and it was like she just sent it to me randomly, or maybe she posted it. It was like self-care sometimes means like cleaning up your kitchen and paying a bill on time. Oh, yeah. And I really felt that.
SPEAKER_02So that's my New Year's resolution. Oh, yeah. Paying a bill on time is like, wow, good job.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, my New Year's resolution is to stop being a like disorganized, hot mess of a person.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's great. Go us. Well, I had a good holiday season, but I will tell you, I'm really glad the holidays are over because the advertisements these days on the TV, they're like made to make you cry.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Like the Wayfair commercial? Are you joking me? Is okay, refresh my memory.
SPEAKER_02The Wayfair commercials where it's like the old grandpa is like trying to make everything the way it was, like that his wife made, and she's clearly passed away. And then he has like, you know, he bakes the cookie she did, and like he sets up the tree and all this stuff, and then like the whole family comes over, and then they're watching the grandma like dance. And I'm gonna cry right now.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yes, you sent that one to me, and I was like, that's one of the most heartbreaking works of commercial cinema I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_02I swear to god, all these ads were like, let's make them cry. I'm like, wow, okay.
SPEAKER_03And then I sent you the this it makes me ball, but then you got very upset, and so I sent her the saddest, it's labeled one of the saddest Christmas commercials of all time.
SPEAKER_02And it's where the grandpa is like, uh, you know, kids, it's a German ad, too. It's like, yeah, we should. This is a a German ad. Yeah. And it's like he's like, kids come to Christmas and they're all have their excuses, like one's working and one's like, I can't come, Papa. And then you see him sitting alone at the table, and it's literally the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. But then they like all the kids get a notice that the dad passed away, and so they're all freaking out, crying, and so they all come together for Christmas, anyways, at his house, and then he appears and he's like, Just kidding, I'm I'm alive. But it's like it's so emotional because all the kids were like, Oh my god, I'm so glad he's alive. And then they spent Christmas together, anyways. It's the most cemented commercial I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_04You send it to me, you're like, Look at this, it's so sad. I was like, No, you're right off. It's not sad. He's a sociopath who fakes their own death to get their family to come to them for Christmas. Do you think I like schlapping my ass around southern Vermont with my four-year-old, the six different families' locations? I don't.
SPEAKER_02But I'm not gonna fake my own death to get everyone to come to my house. You were like, maybe your kids would come to your house as if you weren't such a freaking psycho.
SPEAKER_04Who doesn't want to be with their parents on Christmas? My mother, like, you know this, and everyone who's alive who's ever met us, she drives me insane. I drive her insane, we fight all the time. I would still never want to not have Christmas with her. That would like break my heart.
SPEAKER_02Or, like, like if you knew that your brothers couldn't be with her, like and she was gonna be alone, like you would make every effort to make sure you were there. Like, come on, who are these kids? Also, so I think this family's just like messed up or something.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, it showed them it showed them like going to work and having careers, and it tried to paint them as like obsessed with their jobs over family. It's like, no, they're like just working, probably to pay their bills.
SPEAKER_03Some people have to work, and the dad's like, I'm gonna kill myself off, and then they all have to come.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, but uh, it's so but but he doesn't he so at the end he comes around the corner in like his weird suit, and he's like, he wasn't like, Oh, hey, no, like surprise, I'm alive, ha ha funny. He would he comes around the corner being like, see?
SPEAKER_02Well, no, he goes, How else do you like it was in German, but he it was like, How else do you think I could get you all here together?
SPEAKER_04And then they're like, Papa, nobody punches him in the face, which was shocking. Nobody starts crying, nobody starts thinking that they're having a stroke because their dead father standing in front of them.
SPEAKER_03I know that's the other thing.
SPEAKER_02Like, no one freaked out. Like, yeah, nobody's like, Oh my god, is this the go?
SPEAKER_04Are you the are you the ghost of our father? Like, no, they're just like, oh my god, that's oh, and like hug him. It's so weird. It's the worst. Oh, what was it even an ad for?
SPEAKER_03I don't even know. Some like German clothing company. I don't even know.
SPEAKER_02No, I I don't even, yeah, that's the thing. It's just like labeled the side. Maybe it's just like about being together at Christmas, but like I don't know. It like I do not recall a brand behind that.
SPEAKER_04If my mother or father ever fake their death to get me to come over, I would be like, grab your shoes. We're driving to a mental institution, you're being checked in forever.
SPEAKER_03This is and you will have dinner alone.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, get because you're those kids in that commercial probably never like probably when their mom died, they were like, Oh, phew, now we don't have to deal with that asshole. Oh my god, I'm not kidding. Look what he did to them. He's clearly abusive and manipulative. Or they would have they would have gone home. Nobody would leave their elderly parent alone on Christmas, weren't there like three siblings?
SPEAKER_02No, no, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_04He was probably an egotistical, selfish, manipulative. And clear he proved that by faking his own death.
SPEAKER_03It's just the worst, like honestly.
SPEAKER_02The only scene that like makes me super sad is like when he's eating alone. I'm like, no, why that would never happen. And I don't even care if you're like not even a family member, like a friend, and I saw you eating alone at Christmas, I'd be like, hell no, you're coming to my house or wherever the hell I'm going. That just doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and I think the the image of an old person eating alone, whether it's at home or in a restaurant, it's depressing across the board. I don't think that makes it that makes everyone that's like universally sad. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but I don't know what that commercial's for, but anyway, I was like, look, it's the saddest one ever. And then you broke it down and you were like, no.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's this is it's it's really, really fucked up. Yeah. The very it's the Wayfair commercial in the US with like the the widower is like ordering stuff to make his house all nice, so his family feels comfortable in the way that his wife made it. That was very heartworking. There was nothing messed up about that commercial. That was just no, it was it. I mean, it was a little like you know, icky just because like Wayfarers, like, buy our stuff to make your family feel better about your dead mom. But like, yeah, this one was just like, okay, so these these adults are choosing like their sanity and self-care over like their manipulative, batshit, crazy father. Didn't he didn't it show him putting like an ad in the paper for his um something like he wrote his own obituary? What nobody vetted that? Nobody was like, You're the one dropping off your obituary. That's shady to the newspaper.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and like also who was who yeah, how did he get the work? It was his obituary, I think, at the newspaper, and then like how did he also who was involved in this?
SPEAKER_03Like, who called the the kids to be like your dad's not alive? Seriously, he must have come up with like a really extravagant.
SPEAKER_04The commercial doesn't even scratch the surface on what this man had to do to plan his own death, and that's what's messed up about it.
SPEAKER_02Everyone needs to go watch this, so so you know what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_04Just what what are you what is it on YouTube?
SPEAKER_02It's like I just Googled the saddest Christmas commercial ever, and it's it's the number one thing that pops up, and it has like German subtitles in it, or I mean uh English subtitles, and it's in German. So that was happening a lot during Christmas. I mean, that's an older commercial, I didn't really see it played like on the TV, um, but the Wayfair one was going nuts, and there was a couple other that were others that were just like heartwarming, but I watched several Christmas movies over the break um that made me cry. Oh my god, same here, and you know what? I don't know why. I never cry at home alone, and I was bawling at home alone. That's my favorite. She goes home, yes, but that's a messed up movie, too. First of all, Macaulay Culkin's a serial killer, like that kid will grow up to be a serial killer, most likely.
SPEAKER_04And his parents are very he was defending his home.
SPEAKER_02He's not a serial killer, I know, but that's true. But I mean, it's kind of a messed up movie when you think about it, like the parent on the parent side at least. But speaking of Catherine O'Hara, the mom in home alone, I have been obsessed with shit's creek. I finally finished the whole thing, and I'm obsessed. It is so good.
SPEAKER_04I can't get into it.
SPEAKER_02Did you give it like four episodes? Uh, give it like to give it at least four or five.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I like I love everyone in it, I love the premise. It just isn't it's like not clicking for me. I don't know. I've never been even my dad like loves it, and he's yeah, he what like we have so few things in common with TV.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they say you have to give shits creek about four to five episodes. I had to as well, and then it just became like an obsession. So yeah, it's really good. I really like it. Um, and then the other thing that's been really weird is that Tasmanian is it Tasmania? So Tasmania, where like those little kids were having like their last day of school and they were in the bouncy house, and basically this like gust of wind that they said was like a tornado, like on a clear blue day, came through and lifted the bouncy house up like 30 something feet, and all the kids fell out and they like died.
SPEAKER_04So Tasmania is in Australia, yeah. Is it it's it's like an island off the coast, but it's it's like the smallest Australian state, yeah, or whatever.
SPEAKER_02It was like all over the news. I couldn't, I was like, oh my god, that's so tragic.
SPEAKER_04What an insane thing to happen, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's another reason why you should never go into a bouncy house. I mean, I already have fear of them anyway, because like if they pop that tarp is so heavy on you, you could like suffocate. So I already was against bouncy houses, but now I'm really against them.
SPEAKER_04I hate bouncy houses, they're dirty and they're sticky and they're gross, and they're not that fun. Yeah, so 30 like literally 30 children died.
SPEAKER_02No, no, they the thing got it was I think five or six children, but that fell out flew up to like 30 something feet.
SPEAKER_04Oh, 30 feet. Oh, I thought you said 30 kids. I was like, Oh my no, oh, yeah, horrible.
SPEAKER_02But that was a weird weather-related disaster that I thought was just tragic. But yeah, sending love to those families for sure. Just say no to bouncy houses, everyone, because those things are like airborne. One of them actually, who survived, uh, was by the door of the bouncy house and fell out before it went up.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I think it was like the bouncy house itself, like got you know, lifted up. It's so awful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. So I think next episode we'll talk about your epic trip to Iceland.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll we'll touch on that. I definitely have some cool content um about that. So it was great. I recommend everyone going to take a look. Should we get into it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, let's get into it. Sorry, I'm a little rusty. I'm like, um, hmm, what do I say next? Oh, you know the drill. We just haven't recorded in a couple months, so I'm like rusty. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, buckle it up.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04It's about to get crazy.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Buckle it up.
SPEAKER_04I think I say this all the time. Um, but um this might be my favorite subject I've covered.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_04I think I said that about the last one I did. Yeah. Um but I really I spent a lot of time researching this particular subject topic. Cool. I'm so excited. All right, so um we could call this episode when lakes kill. Okay, but we're not going to because it's much more specific than that. Oh, okay. It's this this is the story of two lakes in Africa that mysteriously murdered lots of people. What yes, and more specifically, we'll call it the Lake Nios tragedy.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, so before we start, my sources are Wikipedia, SmithsonianMag.com, Forbes, Atlas Obscura, Slate.com, and NASA.
SPEAKER_00Mmm.
SPEAKER_04So are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. Okay, so you you good?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Let me take a sip of my vodka first. Okay, so it's August 15th, 1984.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04In the uh equatorial country of Cameroon on the continent of Africa.
SPEAKER_02Cameroon, I've never heard of that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. So it's about the size of California and it's right on the equator.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. In Africa. Okay.
SPEAKER_04You've never heard of Cameroon, really?
SPEAKER_02No, I I feel really weird saying that, but I thought I knew all the countries there, but I've never heard of that.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's many countries, so yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I guess. Um okay, so there's a lake there in Cameroon called Lake Monun. It's shaped like a bone. So, like the bone with like the two knobs on each end. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, we're weird.
SPEAKER_04It's a crater lake and it's surrounded by farms, and it's partly boarded or bordered by a road.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so just before dawn on August 15th, so it's dark out, a truckload of workers are driving down this road that's bordering the lake. Um, the truck is like pretty crammed with workers inside. Um, and then there's two workers sitting on top of the truck.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, I don't know what kind of workers. I think they probably worked at like a local farm. So they're heading to work. So all of a sudden, the truck has complete engine failure and just like dies in the road. So the driver and all the the guys inside the truck get out of the truck to like open the hood and take a look at the engine. And the two workers on top of the truck just like stay on top of the truck. All of a sudden, every single person that got out of the truck to look at the engine collapses. Collapses and dies. What? And just falls to the ground. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04So the two guys on top of the truck are sitting there and they're like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Like, what the fuck? You know? Yeah. Wait, how many people got out? Like five or six. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, including the driver.
SPEAKER_02Okay. That's weird.
SPEAKER_04Or maybe like four. Okay. So yeah. So the guys on top of the truck, they're fine. And they're just like looking down at all of these like bodies on the ground.
SPEAKER_02Weird.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's like a quick, sorry, you might get to this.
SPEAKER_04Was it a quick death or was it like Yeah, they they literally got out of the truck, they were they they like popped the hood, and then just all of them died. They just fainted, fell to the ground, passed out, and they were dead. Yeah. So at the same time that this happened, a villager named Abdo Nikanjouni is biking northward to the village of Ninjindun on this same stretch of road bordering the lake, Lake Manun. He gets to a dip in the road, and he sees ahead of him another truck, a different truck, and he recognizes it as the pickup truck of the local Catholic priest.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, and it's just sitting in the road. So he's like, that's really weird. Um, so as he gets closer on his bike, he sees the priest is dead laying on the ground next to his truck.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So this this kid, Obdo, assuming that the priest has had a heart attack or something, he flies out of there on his bike to go get help in the village. And he comes across a motorcycle just sitting on the road, and there's a person slumped over on the motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01What the hell?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so he like approaches it, and the person on the motorcycle is also dead.
SPEAKER_03What?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03This is so weird.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So he's he he's like holy shit. He starts kind of like freaking out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So then Abdo, the kid that finds the priest and the guy on the motorcycle, he starts feeling like physically not good.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Um, he he's almost in a trance like state, and everything feels really surreal.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04And he doesn't know if it's because he just found two dead bodies. Um, but he starts to feel really weak, also.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_04So he gets off his bike and he just continues down the road on foot.
SPEAKER_02Oh, not a good idea, bud.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_04So as he's walking down the road, he comes across an entire herd of dead sheep in the road. What the hell? Are you sure this just sounds like a movie? It's real, it's real. This is real. Oh my god. And ahead of the dead sheep are several more vehicles that are just sitting in the road, and everyone inside each car is dead.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_04So he starts to be like, is this the apocalypse? Am I dreaming? Is the world ending? What's happening?
SPEAKER_02Did I accidentally take some drugs?
SPEAKER_04Right, right. It's very um what's that show about zombies?
SPEAKER_02It feels like I was thinking that in my head.
SPEAKER_04Like, yeah, like the first, I feel like it's like the first episode where they're everybody's like, or where the guy wakes up in the hospital and everything is weird. Yeah. So he walks past the dead sheep and the dead people in the cars, and he starts walking uphill, and all of a sudden he sees one of his best friends, um, a kid by the name of Amadu, walking towards him. So they walk up to each other, but Abdo can't physically talk at this point. He can't make sounds come out of his mouth. Oh no. And Amadu, his friend, is also in this really strange zombie-like daze. And they just look at each other and they shake hands and they both keep walking in the directions they came from.
SPEAKER_01Oh, weird.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, so Abdo is able to make it on foot to the village of Ninjindun, but Amadu, his friend, is later found dead.
SPEAKER_02What do you mean? I thought they were walking together.
SPEAKER_04No, so Amadu keeps going the way he was going, and Abdu keeps going the way he was going because they met walking down the road. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, I would have just been like, hey, stick with me, bud. They couldn't speak. They were both of them. Couldn't well, I know, but wouldn't you like grab me by the hand and be like, this way? I would try, but maybe they were too weak to even communicate.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they were both in, they were both not okay. So um 36 people total on this that stretch of low road along the lake that Abdu came across and where the truck broke down, 36 people are found dead. Yeah, and the sheep too, and the all the sheep, and nobody knows why.
SPEAKER_02But wait, so okay, keep going. No, no, I'm so into it. No, I'm into it. I did the guy, the other guy, make it the main guy in the motorcycle?
SPEAKER_04He with the bike, Obdo with the bike, he has me. He yeah, he started because he's told this whole story. He's like, This happened, then I found this, then I found this person, then I met my friend. Okay, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. So the people of Cameroon start assuming that this was a chemical poisoning carried out by the government or a domestic terrorist attack. Totally. And I read um in a few different places that for some reason conspiracy theories are very prevalent in Cameroon. Like a lot of Cameroonians believe in conspiracies, like more so than maybe we do here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I don't know if that's I don't know if that was a thing that was more prevalent in the 80s or if it's still a thing now, but I read that. Okay, so local officials, however, start considering geology as a factor. And the earliest theory is that a dormant volcano under Lake Manoon had reactivated and released poisonous gas.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that that leached out of the lake and only affected the people on that low stretch of road running along the lake. Oh, yeah. So that becomes the the theory, basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, so the US embassy in the capital um of Cameroon, Yonday, contacts a volcanologist from the US by the name of Sigurdson and asks him to investigate. So Sigurdsson, this volcanologist, um, he heads to Cameroon and he takes samples and collects data, and he can't find any evidence that there was a volcanic eruption.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. And also, like, that must have been so scary for him to like go to the place where people were dying. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, I wonder what he had to wear.
SPEAKER_04I don't think he I don't know. I think he just went in there and was like, let's figure it out. Oh, wait, question.
SPEAKER_02Uh, what happened to the two guys on the top of the truck? Did they die too?
SPEAKER_04No. So I guess they survived because they didn't, so this will become we'll we'll unpack this. Okay, so but they they did not get off the top of the truck, so that's important.
SPEAKER_02Thank god. I wouldn't have touched that eat like the ground either. Yeah, would have been like, I'm not going down there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think they were too afraid to get off the truck. So um, there's no indication that the temperature of the lake water increased. There's no disruption to the bed of the lake, there are no sulfur compounds found in the lake water, and all of this would need to be a thing if a volcano erupted under the lake. So he finds he finds none of that is he finds none of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But something really weird does happen when the volcanologist takes a sample of water from the bottom of the lake. So he lowers a bottle and some kind of mechanism where you can cap the bottle underwater and then pull it up so it doesn't take water in from anywhere in the lake except from the bottom. Except from the bottom. Okay. So when he does that and he draws the bottle up into his boat, the lid pops off the bottle. Whoa. Like crazy, like which it shouldn't have. It should have been really securely tightened. Oh, weird. Yeah. So he's like, This is super weird. These caps are built to stay on the bottle. You know, why would the cap just like fly off like that as soon as it gets, you know, out of the water? Uh-huh. He tests the water in the bottle, and the water is saturated with carbon dioxide.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_04So that's why the cap flew off. The water is like highly saturated. Oh. With carbon dioxide.
SPEAKER_02So I didn't even know that could be a thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I didn't either. I didn't really understand. I mean, carbon dioxide is what you breathe out. Yeah. You know, and it's what plants breathe in. I remember that from science class, but um so um Sigurdsson, I hope I'm saying his name right. Um, he theorizes that these people that died, they they must have died from carbon dioxide exposure.
unknownWeird.
SPEAKER_04Um, but he needs to figure out how they would be in contact with enough carbon dioxide to kill them because you it has to be heavy amounts.
SPEAKER_02And they're outside. So it's weird. Yeah. And like, why isn't the scientist who's like collecting these samples dying? Yeah. Right above the water. You'll get to it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And also people traveled this road and traveled this road after this happened and nobody died. So this was like an isolated event. That's what's creepy about it. So for a few more weeks, he does more data collection. Um, and he comes to the conclusion that magma underneath the lake is doing a thing called degassing. It's releasing carbon dioxide up through the ground into the bottom of the lake. Uh-huh. So basically, carbon dioxide is like percolating up into the lake bottom, but it's carbon dioxide is heavy. It's heavier than air. So it's not floating to the top of the lake, it's just collecting at the bottom.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_04And it's basically creating this time bomb of gas that could just theoretically explode at any moment.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, creepy.
SPEAKER_04Um, and so he also concludes that this has been happening for a long time. Um, the carbon dioxide collecting at the bottom of the lake. And he thinks the gas got so pent up that it exploded and released a wave of super concentrated carbon dioxide up through the lake that floated over the lake and then to the lowest ground around the lake. And these people that just happened to be on this low stretch of road suffocated, basically.
SPEAKER_02Um, that sucks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so it's like this wave of concentrated carbon dioxide that would that he he's like, okay, I think this is probably what happened. Okay, so let's talk about carbon dioxide for a minute. We need a little science. Give me the science. Okay, so it's colorless, it's odorless, it's a gas, it's heavier than air, and it's what we said this we breathe out when we exhale. It's the normal byproduct of respiration. It is also a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and it's the main culprit of global warming.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Unless you're a climate change denier, and so then you don't believe that. But that's what most scientists have agreed on.
SPEAKER_02Of course, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Makes sense. So at high concentrations, carbon dioxide replaces oxygen in the air. So that's really not good if it's being released in high volumes around you. Yeah. Um, okay. So if the air that you're breathing in is 5% carbon dioxide, it will kill car engines and it will snuff out candles. Oh, that's why their car died. Weird. If the air is 10% carbon dioxide, people breathing in this air will start hyperventilating. You'll get dizzy. Um, and then you will eventually eventually fall into a coma. Oh. If you continue to breathe in the 10% carbon dioxide. Damn. If the air is 30% carbon dioxide, anyone breathing in this air is just gonna collapse and die.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Like pretty much immediately.
SPEAKER_02That makes sense. Because I was like, what, how, what way like do you just die like that? Right. Exactly. A whole car full of people? No, yeah, yeah. So it must have been like a really powerful concentration.
SPEAKER_04Oh, it sure was, and we will continue to talk about that. Um, okay, so carbon dioxide is also a byproduct of volcanic rock melting and cooling off. So there are carbonated springs and naturally occurring vents all over the world where carbon dioxide is being released into the air. And we've talked about this before. Like on the um the Yellowstone episode, the geysers, the deadly geysers. Yeah. But it's the carbon dioxide being released from these vents, it's not high enough in concentration to do anything. So it just like disperses right after it surfaces. So it's not deadly in most of these places, but it's being released all the time. Okay, yeah. It's a totally normal geologic process. I read an article when I was doing my research that was like, it's basically like when you open a bottle of like seltzer and it's just like and then that's it. Yeah. That's the carbon dioxide coming out, like the bubbles, the carbonation.
SPEAKER_02Totally, yeah.
SPEAKER_04There are places in the world where there have been incidents where the level of carbon dioxide being released into the air is actually lethal to anyone in its direct vicinity. Um, so in central Italy, for example, there's a lot of volcanic activity. And since Roman times, it's been recorded that there are carbon dioxide vents that once in a while will kill people and animals who like wander into um a kind of like a depression in the land where there's like a heavy pooling of carbon dioxide.
SPEAKER_02Why would they go there?
SPEAKER_04You have no idea because it's odorless.
SPEAKER_02You can't see. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I mean, I think now that probably hasn't happened in a long time because they know where these areas are, but like in Roman times and you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They probably have like signs now, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, now it's more right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, and also at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, there's a ravine called Death Gulch. And there have been Of course there is. Yeah, that's like that whole part of it. Your favorite place. Horrifying. Oh, also, like kind of related. My entire family is obsessed with the show Yellowstone, and I've haven't watched it.
SPEAKER_02And they insist just told me to watch it yesterday.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah, they put me on the group text for it, and I never have any idea what anyone's talking about. And my mom takes up for it, like she wrote the screenplay, she's like that passionate about it.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah, my sister was like, We cannot stop watching it. She was like, because she has two kids, like, really, like a baby too, and she has to get her sleep, and she was like, I had I couldn't go to sleep till one because of this Yellowstone show. Yeah, I didn't even know that was a thing until she said it. And that's weird that your family's obsessed.
SPEAKER_04It's Kevin Costner. He plays the Patriarch.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wait, is it like a series? I thought it was like a like a planet.
SPEAKER_04No, it's a series, it's a show. Oh, I had my dad and my stepmother, my brother and my sister-in-law, and then my mom's boyfriend. My mom was out of town over for dinner like a month ago, and like they were like, Let's watch Yellowstone, because they all are obsessed with it. And I'm the only one that's like, I don't even watch the show. They're like, Oh, let's watch this episode. And it's the episode where one of the women on it, it's like this brutal scene where she gets fully attacked and raped. And I'm like sitting in my living room with my family, and I'm like, and they're all like engrossed in it, and I'm like, whoa.
SPEAKER_02Wait, I thought, okay, so it's like, is it good? Like, is it worth it?
SPEAKER_04I think so.
SPEAKER_02I mean I'm more of like a a documentary type of like no, it's it's that's not true.
SPEAKER_04I can get into like things, but I don't, I I don't I don't not watch it because I don't like it. I just haven't made time in it or time for it yet in my life.
SPEAKER_02Make it our thing, then I know we should probably watch it anyway. I just have so many shows right now, like I know, like my thousand pound sisters.
SPEAKER_04I don't even want to get show.
SPEAKER_02I'm into too much reality TV right now, and I need a day fiance holler. Okay, anyways.
SPEAKER_04Okay, because so there's this ravine called Death Gulch, and there have been several incidents of grizzly bears killed by carbon dioxide poisoning from vents and carbonated springs in the gulch.
SPEAKER_02And I'm oh wow, I'm sure there's signs that you're not allowed to go like as a human into that, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think death gulch is blocked off, probably.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but then you probably have the idiots that go off trail, so of course, you always have those idiots, yeah. But that's that's interesting. Wow, I did not know that.
SPEAKER_04And then also, do you remember? And I think we talked about this briefly on another episode, but um, do you remember that family of three? Uh a married couple, their one-year-old baby, and their dog and the dog, yes, yes, yes, they all died mysteriously in California and the Sierras. Yeah, but I so when they first one of the theories was that they had wandered into, for some reason, a carbon dioxide pool. Yeah, like a head, like a like a yeah, like that they had just just randomly and for some sick, twisted, you know, twist of fate, they happened to go near a vent or something or a mine shop.
SPEAKER_02That's what they thought, at least that or like algae. That's when I remember us talking about that, but then we but then we like followed it and we it turned out to be like hypothermia in the hot way.
SPEAKER_04They died from yeah, they died from extreme dehydration and hyperthermia.
SPEAKER_02Hyperthermia, yeah. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04They didn't bring enough water and it was really hot. It was it was yeah, that's crazy, it was very preventable, but yeah. So, um, okay, so back to um Sigurdsson, the volcanologist, and his his carbon dioxide wave theory. So the problem with this theory is there was no precedent. This had never been recorded before anywhere on Earth. Like in this way where it killed people. Right. He's the first scientist that really delves into this, and he's like, I don't know what this is, it's an unknown natural hazard. But technically, if this happened again, it could kill an entire village or town of people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, depending on how much carbon dioxide gets released. So he's like, This is a potentially huge problem, and I'm gonna devote my work to figuring this out.
SPEAKER_02Totally. Good for him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So he returns. To the United States. He's researching more, you know, doing data collection. And in June, two years later in 1986, he submits his study that he's been working on to the prestigious journal Science. And Science fully rejects his paper. And they're like, this is not based in anything we're interested in. We're not publishing this. This is garbage, basically. Wow. So he's like, okay, great. All right. Um, so he keeps um focusing on uh his his work, his research, but um there's no one really else in the field that's interested in covering it or talking about it. Wow, that's sad. So now it's August. So it's a couple months later after Sigurdsson's paper is rejected. Um it's August 21st, 1986. Now we're on the shores of another lake in Cameroon by the name of Lake Nyos, which is about 140 miles north of Lake Manon, the first lake we discussed. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. So this villager by the name of Ephraim Che, and I'm just gonna call him Che.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04He's hanging out in his house, which sits on a cliff overlooking Lake Naos.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Sounds lovely.
SPEAKER_04Yes, very lovely. Um, there's a half moon and it's lighting up the lake, the hills, the valleys beyond. It's a beautiful night, which is very typical of this area. The weather is really nice year-round. Um, Che is a subsistence farmer, meaning he basically grows food for his family and makes little to no profit from whatever he does. So he has four children and a wife who all live with him. So it's around 9 p.m. And Che hears what he thinks is a rock slide in the distance. And he's looking out over the lake, and because the moon is really lighting up the lake, he can see everything. Yeah. And all of a sudden, he sees this white mist rise up out of the lake. Ah, like this super thick mist. Yeah. Um, but he's like, he's not thinking much of it. He's like, Oh, that must just be like steam fog from the cold air drifting across the warm water, you know, like of course that happens. Yeah. So he his kids are all like up and hanging out, and his wife, and he's like, you know, so I think it might rain. I'm gonna go to bed, and also like I'm not feeling great. Uh-oh. Okay, so he goes to bed. So at the same time that this is happening, a cattle farmer by the name of Halima Soule is getting for uh ready for bed, and she's getting her four children ready for bed. They live in a thatched hut pretty much on the shore of Lake Nyos in a small compound with many extended family members in other huts. Uh-huh. So as she's falling asleep, she hears the same rumbling, like the rock slide rumbling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hi, Rocco.
SPEAKER_04Hold on, that scared the shit out of me. Sorry, hold on.
SPEAKER_02Scared me too, but I knew it was Rocco.
SPEAKER_04God, uh you're being a real dick.
SPEAKER_02What does he see? A bear?
SPEAKER_04You are. You're really cute, too.
SPEAKER_02It was kind of funny when you're like, you're being a real dick. I might keep that in.
SPEAKER_04I think you should. Because then I'm like, oh, you're cute though. So people won't think I'm like cool to animals, right? Um, should we keep going? Marco could like appear back at any time, and I'm gonna have to get up and let him in.
SPEAKER_02That's fine, as long as you don't mind editing, or you can just keep it in.
SPEAKER_04No, I don't, I don't. I just I know it's annoying.
SPEAKER_02No, it's fine.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so okay, so Halima Soule. Um, as she's falling asleep, she hears that rumbling that Shay also heard. Che. And then this super strong wind like hits the hut she's in, and then she passes out, and that's the last thing she remembers. Oh no. So the next morning at first light, Che wakes up, the guy that lives like on the cliff overlooking the lake. Yeah, he heads outside down the hill to the lake, like he normally would on any given morning. And he looks at the lake and it's red. It is normally like a crystal y blue, is red the entire lake. So he's like, What the hell?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's not good.
SPEAKER_04So he's kind of like, Oh my god, like what has happened? So he walks down to the only outlet of the lake, which is a waterfall, and the waterfall's gone. Like, what do you mean? Like so, like you know, all lakes and ponds have an outlet, like a stream or something. So the water there was the waterfall, like normally it's like this beautiful cascade of water at this low point in the shore going into the river beneath, and it's just completely dried up.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's dried up. Okay, I thought it was like maybe I don't know what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_04Oh no, yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_02I thought it was like bam, it's disappeared.
SPEAKER_04No, no, yeah, no, it's just there's an overthrow.
SPEAKER_02Overgrowth, it's like right.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, no, it wasn't like um cupboard was sorry, I should have been more clear about that.
SPEAKER_02No, I just have a crazy imagination. I was like, damn, son, this this does sound like a movie anyway, so you never know.
SPEAKER_04When I was a little kid, there was this stream near my great-grandfather's house, and I would play in it, and I remember lifting up this huge rock and the water going down into the spot where I lifted the rock up from. And I swear the it like the stream like dried up. It like stopped, it like went into this like hole. I swear to god, it's like this early memory I have, and I like blamed myself for the stream drying up.
SPEAKER_03I swear to god, so weird.
SPEAKER_02Like you like blocked the you probably just like like you were like a beaver, like you made like a like a thing.
SPEAKER_04I have to ask my grandparents about this, but I remember being like, Oh, I moved this like big rock, and then the water stopped flowing down the river. It went into this hole.
SPEAKER_02Are you sure it was a stream and not like a trickle?
SPEAKER_04I would say a stream is the lightest river flow you can get, right? Right, it wasn't a brook, it wasn't a river, it wasn't it was a stream.
SPEAKER_02You should ask your grandpa and see what he says. Did it like dry up forever?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it did.
SPEAKER_03Dang, you have powers, girl.
SPEAKER_02I know crazy okay, okay. So the waterfall just dried up, it didn't just magically disappear.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so he's standing, so Che is standing there and he's looking around and he's like, How could the lake be red? How could the waterfall have dried up? What is happening? And then he realizes he doesn't hear a single bird. Oh and there are there are no bugs flying around. There's this like dead silence, not good, and he's like walking around and he's just like what where's the noise of the like of life? It's yeah, like so he starts shaking and having like a panic attack, yeah, and he starts running along the lake because he's terrified and he's like, I need to find someone to tell to tell that this is happening.
SPEAKER_02Where what about his family?
SPEAKER_04Well, they're up on the hill, they're they're fine, they're up on the cliff. Okay, like they were just like hanging out at the house when he decided to be like, I'm gonna take a walk down to the lake.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So he's running down the lake because there's a village right there, and he's all of a sudden hears a woman screaming like bloody murder. Oh god, and he runs toward the screaming, and this woman is running toward him, screaming his name with all of her clothes ripped off. She's completely naked. And it's Halima, Sulie. Oh no, it's her, the woman who heard the rumble, felt the wind, and passed out. Yeah, she's the cattle farm, she's a cattle farmer. Um, she's flipping out and she's screaming, and she's like, His first name's Ephraim. She's like, Ephraim, there's just people laying all over the ground and they're not moving.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04So she they run to where she had just come from together. And on the ground are her four dead children.
SPEAKER_02No, stop.
SPEAKER_0431 other dead family members that lived in those huts. And then there's 400 dead cattle just all over the place. They're all dead. What the f every single person and cow is dead.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Her entire family. I wonder, I wonder how she survived. Okay, go ahead. Wow. Okay, so another thing to note, her husband happened to be out of town on this day. Oh god, yeah, doing business in another town, but all of her children are dead, yeah. Oh so Halima in her like grief and like freaking out, she just starts like shaking her dad's body on the on the ground, being like, Wake up, wake up! And Shay starts looking around, and he's like, If there's been dead bodies all night, there should be flies. And then he's looking around and like there's dead flies everywhere.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, it just like wiped out everything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so even the flies that would have started because in the heat, you know, of course, it's August on the equator. Oh my god, hold on, Rappo! My god, he's like on meth, he's running around flipping out.
SPEAKER_02That's okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so um so even the flies are dead, so even the flies that would show up to start feeding off of dead bodies in the August heat on the equator are just dead all over.
SPEAKER_02That's insane.
SPEAKER_04So Che is like, I need to go check the village below because a lot of his family lives down there.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_04So he leaves Helima there and he runs down to the village of Lower Naos. There are a thousand dead people in this village. What? Literally a thousand.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Who's the dick that didn't listen to cigarette? What cigarette Sigurdson.
SPEAKER_04Sigurdson and his paper science. Blame science, the the the magazine, the journal.
SPEAKER_02Science.magazine.com, you suck.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's like you just really you dropped the ball there. You dropped it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Wow, that's really, really sad.
SPEAKER_04So he finds his dead parents, he finds his dead siblings, he finds his dead uncles and aunts. He goes to everyone's house there who who is his family member, and they're all dead. And there's people dead everywhere. So he starts crying and freaking out and panicking, and just like running around looking for anyone alive, running into houses, but everyone's dead. There are no survivors. So about 1,800 people total die from this on this night. They're they are all within 16 miles of the lake, and most of them are rural villagers.
SPEAKER_02Wait, 16 miles of it?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. That's so you could yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you could be like 16 miles from the lake and still have died?
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02That's not cool.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, it's messed up. Um, 3,500 cows, cattle are also found dead total, along with a countless number of insects and other animals. Oh no. Uh so everyone who's dead is found where they would have been at at 9 p.m. that night, reasonably. So this helps investigators understand more about what happened.
SPEAKER_02And it all happened at like once.
SPEAKER_04It all happened at once. So some people were were like cooking and like clearly they were like cooking and they were found dead. Oh, some people were hanging out outside near fires, some people were in bed, some people were inside their house, some people were clustered near their doorways, like, but the placement of their bodies, it it was um it was evident that as soon as you encountered this, you you died.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sounds pretty you can't imagine dying that fast.
SPEAKER_04I know. Well, it's probably better than oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'd take carbon monoxide any day, like over like getting shot or like carbon mono.
SPEAKER_04This is carbon dioxide.
SPEAKER_02Oh, sorry, what did I say?
SPEAKER_04Carbon monoxide is another shitty thing that I have a big fear of.
SPEAKER_02Wait, carbon dioxide. Is that the wait?
SPEAKER_04There too. So carbon monoxide is a deadly gas that I think is produced by like industrial okay, that's what I thought it.
SPEAKER_02I thought this was the same thing too, even though you clarified that it was from like you clarified what it was, but for some reason I was confusing that also with when you know you get it in your house and you die. Well, I think that's carbon monoxide.
SPEAKER_04Carbon monoxide is also odorless and is deadly, and you you're legally, I think you're supposed to have a carbon monoxide detector.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Wow. The whole time I was thinking this is also the same thing.
SPEAKER_04No, so this is carbon dioxide, which is what you breathe out, but it's created by um volcanic processes, like okay.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I thought monoxide was also that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Two different two different gases, but thank you. It's so it carbon monoxide would be one carbon atom and one oxygen atom and right and carbon dioxide. Don't ask me one carbon and two oxygen atoms. That's how it breaks down. I remember that from good for you. Yeah, well, it's like mono and dye, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't I have no idea what that minute you start talking about molecules. I I checked out a long time ago.
SPEAKER_04So, um, okay, so there's also people they later find they later find that didn't die from asphyxiation from the gas, but they um died from suicide. What?
SPEAKER_02Oh, because the other people were dead. So there were people how would you react if like your whole family died around you and you're still like alive? Like, I don't think I'd kill myself. I wouldn't kill myself. I would be like, I want to find out what happened. Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_04And so so most people did die from this like mass asphyxiation event, but then there were suicides sprinkled in there, like people that thought they woke up then it was like the apocalypse or they were in an alternate univore universe.
SPEAKER_02Totally. I can see where that can be very traumatic.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, especially if you're isolated and you don't see another person who's alive. Like Che and Halima ran into each other at least, and he and Che like saw his family that morning, like they were all fine, so it's like and that's because they were on the cliff, right? They yeah, so they were like high above the lake.
SPEAKER_02Thank God.
SPEAKER_04So word spreads very quickly about this mysterious mass death all over the world, and within days, scientists from everywhere converge on Nios to start figuring out what happened. So now they're taking it seriously.
SPEAKER_02Well, good. Hmm, finally.
SPEAKER_04So the initial assumption by the scientific community is that a long dormant volcano underneath the lake erupted and released deadly gases into the surrounding environment, just like they first assumed with like Manoon. But before we get into what scientists figure out over the next two decades, because it takes that long to figure this out, um, I just want to like give a little bit of background about Cameroon and Lake Nios.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04So Lake Nios is also a crater lake, just like Lake Manun, which means it's a lake that was created by a volcanic eruption.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um, it's in a very remote region of Cameroon in northwest Cameroon. And it's in the um volcanic highlands. Um, so it's basically a mountainous region with volcanic activity. Okay. And this area has been volcanically active for millions of years.
SPEAKER_01Cool.
SPEAKER_04So Lake Nios is super deep, 682 feet at its deepest. Damn. And it's on the side of an inactive volcano in the Oku volcanic fields.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's weird.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um because it's inactive.
SPEAKER_04It's inactive, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, the the yeah, so it's it's on the side of an inactive volcano, but they thought initially that maybe there was an active volcano, you know, the volcano underneath it became active. Right, right. So the Oku volcanic field consists of volcanic Mars, which is a broad volcanic crater that usually fills up with water and becomes relatively shallow, like a relatively shallow crater lake. And basaltic scoria cones, which is actually just the most common type of volcano. Okay. And it's also known as a cinder cone. Cool. So even though Lake Nios is on the side of a technically extinct volcano, there are still pockets of magma underneath the lake leaking carbon dioxide and other gases up through the earth. These fumes then dissolve in the natural springs and circling and then up into the water, which leaches into the bottom of the lake. Okay. Yeah. That's the basic, that's a very simplified explanation of how this is happening.
SPEAKER_02I just think it's weird though that they they consider it inactive when there's still magma, like in the area.
SPEAKER_04Well, inactive, I think, is defined. I think an inactive volcano is defined as like it's not going to explode and cause problems.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha.
SPEAKER_04But there's still seismic activities going on and like volcanic activities going on. So Lake Nios is one of only three lakes in the entire world that this carbon dioxide situation happens in, by the way. So this isn't something that happens outside of Africa. Oh, weird. But they didn't really know this until scientists started figuring out how to prevent this from happening again. So Lake Manoon is the other one, and then Lake Kivu, which is located spanning the Congo and Rwanda border, is another, is the third one.
SPEAKER_02Is it okay?
SPEAKER_04Where there's carbon dioxide building up in the bottom of the lake.
SPEAKER_02I wonder how they found out about that one. Did they just start going around testing all the lakes?
SPEAKER_04I think so, yeah. Um, I actually don't know the answer to that, but I'm assuming that they were, you know, there was a more of a like an all-hands-on-deck approach when all these people died.
SPEAKER_02Totally.
SPEAKER_04The carbon dioxide remains saturated at the bottom of the lake because cold, dense water sinks. So, like the the water at the bottom of the lake is always going to be colder than the water at the top.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But the problem is over time, as more and more carbon dioxide leaches into the bottom of the lake, the water becomes. Super saturated. And if there's an earthquake or a landslide or like a big disturbance, this can force a large amount of carbon dioxide to like suddenly come out of solution and like exit up through the water into the air. And this is called outgassing.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, is that is that why they heard the rock slide? Yeah. Did the rock slide cause it?
SPEAKER_04Well, so that is still, I guess, unknown technically. But we'll get into that. But yeah. Yeah, like there would have had so there was either a disturbance or this there there was so much pent up carbon dioxide that it just it had to get out. Like it reached its limit of how much could be um you know built up.
SPEAKER_02Outgassing. Outgassing. That's what it's called. Nice. Should we make a shirt out of that? Maybe. I have so many weird things I want to say about that, but I have so many things too, but I don't want to be I don't want to be gross.
SPEAKER_03It's like a dude holding a can of beans and being like, I want me to outgas later.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. Yep. It's like it's like eating a burrito and being like, there's gonna be some outgassing later tonight.
SPEAKER_03I'm so immature. I'm like crying.
SPEAKER_02I am too. Oh you can cut that out if you want. No, I'm keeping that in. Oh, damn it. So okay.
SPEAKER_04So this is like kind of my favorite part of this whole thing, like the history of Lake Nios.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, and I I know I've expressed my religious beliefs before on this podcast. I'm a atheist, I don't believe in anything. I like appreciate religion for the good things that it's done for humanity, but I personally am not a believer. And I always kind of, you know, I don't I don't make fun of like religious tradition or um like these silly things that I think people do in the name of like their God or whatever. Like I don't mean to make fun of it. Yeah. But to me, it is a little bit um silly.
SPEAKER_02To me, so I don't want to go in the same way. Yeah, no defense to anyone.
SPEAKER_04And my my dad and stepmother are very religious, and like my grandmother. So like I'm believe me, I live in like a I live in a world where like all of these religious things like have a place and are important.
SPEAKER_02Same.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But at the same time, I always kind of like so I don't mean the next section, I don't mean to make fun, but it's amusing to me.
SPEAKER_02That's great. No, and I just for all you listeners, I'm I'm with Vanessa. I mean, I believe in like a higher power, I just don't know what it is, but I know that on this podcast we're pretty like direct about how we feel about stuff like that. And I again it's no offense to anybody, it's just kind of like yeah, our take on life, of course, yeah, and like how we deal with things, I guess.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, yeah. So there's our little disclaimer.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay, so skip ahead if you want to go read the Bible.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so which is fine, yeah, totally. Read the Bible. It's like go for it. I don't care. Do what you do what you want, live your life.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_04So, okay, so local mythology in this area of Cameroon um suggests that people for generations have known that the lake, that Lake Nios has some like destructive capabilities. So um Cameroonian mythology also in general has a lot about lakes in it. Okay. So in Camera in Cameroonian mythology, lakes are where the dead exist, and lakes are also a prominent source of death. Oh legend has it that lakes are dangerous and unpredictable, they rise, sink, explode, and even change their location. Okay, I agree with that. Well, this is part of their like tribal mythology. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, so yeah, I just think lakes are dangerous and annoying and unpredictable.
SPEAKER_04See, I don't feel that I feel so safe with lakes. The ocean freaks me out. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02I don't like lakes that much. I mean, I'll go in a nice lake, don't get me wrong, but I feel like it's like slimy.
SPEAKER_04It's like I know you always say that you feel like it's slimy. I don't know why. It's like fresh water, like the ocean is all salty.
SPEAKER_02I know, I'd rather have that. And it's like ever flowing, but like the lake lakes are ever flowing, they have they have inputs and outputs. That's true. Anyways, go ahead. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04So, no, don't apologize for your stating my feelings about the lakes. Don't ever apologize for that. So, but but this makes sense if you think about it. If this outgassing has been happening like every 50 hundred years or something, wouldn't it make sense that the mythology handed down generation to generation was like warning about the lake? Yeah, but then why would you live there if that was your religious beliefs? Well, because that's that's a part that's what mythology is all about. It's like these stories that we have from our ancestors, but like, do we interpret how do we interpret them?
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so this is a new term. I didn't know what this was, but I'm fascinated by this, and I think I want to like study this. It's called geo mythology. So it's basically like the mythology that's created because of geological events. Oh, happens at a time when the people at living at the time would attribute it to like God or their gods or whatever. Yeah. Instead of science scientific reasons.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I feel like that's like a big topic. I feel like that's how most religions were created, right? Geo mythology.
SPEAKER_04Um, maybe, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh I mean, with like the possibly gods and like the different weather events that probably killed tons of people that they attributed to different gods. I mean, yeah, that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, totally. It's a huge I want to delve into it. I really want to because it's very fascinating to me. But um also, so like and it there would be a disaster, then it becomes more exaggerated and like fantastic as time goes on because it's just being told like story-wise through generations, and then it fades into legend and the details change, but like these geo mythologies really do preserve the core of the story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So um, this is kind of evident in the fact that there are certain ethnic groups in this area that don't build homes or live on the lake shore. Like they won't build or live on the shore. They're smart, they only build their homes on high ground. Yeah, so this suggests that there's a collective memory passed down for generations that like these deadly outgassing events happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious about that because like we're talking 1980s, you know, and like and this is rural Africa. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04And they live in like mud huts, like they're they don't have technology.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. So maybe they don't have like the I mean they I'm sure they somehow have it written, like like you said, yeah, anyways. I was just wondering if they had like access to like ancestry.com or something. Well, not not no, you know what I mean? Like they would know now, maybe but 100 years ago, right? Oh, yeah, we didn't even have that in the 80s. What am I talking about?
SPEAKER_04We it's on the internet. We didn't have nobody was on ancestry.com in 1986. Anyways, I don't know what I'm doing. I was born in 1986. Okay, okay, so Ephraim Che, our guy, the guy that has the house on the cliff, his people, um, they're a tribe in the area, they're called the Baffmen, and they are Christians, and they are an example of an ethnic group that follows this tradition. They build their houses above the lake.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_04However, yeah, so they have had this mythology passed down where their ancestors, like they've always been taught never build a home, never live on the same level or lower than the lake. That's that like saved his life. Yeah, it really did. It really did. Um, however, there are other ethnic groups who moved there like in the mid-century, like 1950s, who didn't believe in this and don't follow this custom. And that's Halim Asouli's family. They're Muslims and their ethnic group are the Fulani, and they settled the lower slopes of the Naios. So by the 80s, there were like thousands of people living along the lake and on the slope and in the valley below, who like didn't have these cus these, who didn't have this mythology passed down to them. Totally. Yeah. That's it just depends on, you know. So Ephraim Che, his grandfather, he his grandfather told him this story, and he um, after the tragedy, he was interviewed like a million times because he was like one of the only survivors. Yeah. So he has this story. This is an example of geo mythology. So he said his grandfather told him when he was a kid a long time ago, a group of villagers decided to cross Lake Nios. One of the fishermen parted the waters, like God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites. Okay, but then a mosquito bit him on his testicle.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, while he's parting the water.
unknownSorry.
SPEAKER_04And as he's swatting the mosquito off his ball sack, he loses grip of the water and drowns all of his friends. This is the literal story. So the ghosts of these fishermen are believed to be like wedged in between the rocks and the lake, and supposedly you can hear them like chatting sometimes with each other. Ooh, uh, yeah. So, like this dude suffered a you know how horrible a mosquito bite is. Imagine getting it on your ball.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we don't have balls, but like, yeah, no, I wouldn't like it down there, no way.
SPEAKER_04I no horrifying. No wonder he lost control of the water.
SPEAKER_02I lost control this summer when like a centipede tried to crawl up in my bathing suit right there, and I grabbed it out, like really it was the scariest thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, if you were trying to like part the lake, I think you would be distracted if that happened. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's a miss that's one of their stories that they've passed down.
SPEAKER_02He was like, damn mosquito, and then like everybody drowned.
SPEAKER_04Like, yeah, but if you think about it, this story that's been passed down, maybe there was an outgassing event. Because I'm gonna tell you what happens also with the outgassing. It's not just like the there's a lot of bad shit that happens when the lake outgasses. Okay, so these people back in the day could have witnessed this, and then this is the story that gets distorted and passed down and like becomes more like fantasy, but it still has like the core message, which is like the lake went fucking nuts and people died. Totally. Okay, so Japanese geochemist Minoru Kusukabe is woken up at 1 a.m. by a Cameroonian government official asking him to jump on the first plane to Cameroon. Um, he doesn't even know where Cameroon is, but he's like, sure, I'll I'll be there. ASAP. French volcanologists, German, Italian, Swiss, and British scientists, and American pathologists, geologists, and chemists all converge on Lake Nios to try and figure out what the hell happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So George Kling, a limnologist, which literally means lake scientist. That's actually a career.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow, cool.
SPEAKER_04A limnologist. He had actually been at Lake Nios the year before in 1985, studying the chemistry of these lakes for his doctoral thesis at the University of Michigan because they are like these rare lakes, like these crater lakes. Yeah. Not that crater lakes are rare, but like, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And also like him hearing about the whole thing with Lake Manoon brought him there. Um, so George Kling, he didn't have access to a boat when he was at Lake Nayos, but he met a little boy who was like, Oh, I'll take you around the lake and like kind of be your guide. So Kling took samples from the shore. He didn't get, you know, he obviously didn't get any traces of dangerous gases because he was taking samples of um shallow water, but like this kid that lived there was like his awesome guide and like helped him get around.
SPEAKER_02That's cool.
SPEAKER_04So Kling is one of the Americans who shows up after the tragedy in 1986, and he gets there and he's informed pretty quickly that the the the boy who had been his guide was one of the people that had were dead. Oh no, and then he realizes that everyone who had helped him, all the like very kind villagers who had helped him when he came to take data, they every single person he met was dead. That's so sad. I know. So he's obviously devastated, and he's like, I'm gonna he like vows to figure out what happened. Yeah, you know, he's he's just like torn apart. Yeah. So this this like team of scientists from several different countries, they start piecing the events of the tragedy together. Meanwhile, the Cameroonian military is just dumping dead bodies into a mass grave because they don't have the resources to bury people individually, and also, you know, the places where these people would have been buried, this is kind of like a crime scene. Yeah, because it's like where the death occurred.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But with a lot of these tribes, you bury your loved ones in your front yard.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, that's sad. Yeah. So like they don't have any, they can't even bury them in their yard. Well, I mean, there's no one there anymore, anyways, right?
SPEAKER_04They're yeah, I mean, like they're they're they're all dead, but still, like some people who died did have family in other places, and like these people couldn't properly really like mourn them because so sad. Yeah, like imagine like you not having your loved ones like remains where you can decide what to do with it. It's just in a mass grave that's terrible of a thousand people. Like, yeah, it's horrifying. They're decomposing bloated cattle laying everywhere, so it smells horrible. Then there's heavy rains, which obviously interfere with the the work of the scientists. Um, but the surviving locals invite scientists into their homes, they cook for them, they make sure they have warm and dry places to hang out until they can resume their work. And a lot of these scientists like did interviews later on, being like these people were so freaked out and like had seen all this stuff, but they were like really concerned about that. We were like warm and dry and had stuff to eat.
SPEAKER_01Aww.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That makes me really want to cry. I know it's really, really horrible and sad. So the scientists take inflatable dinghies into the lake to take deep water samples because many of them still believe there's an underwater volcano that erupted. But then some of them had already looked into um Sigurdsen's theory about the unknown natural hazard at the bottom of the lake, and they think it might have something to do with that. Yeah. So it takes months for the scientists to figure out the basic like structure of what happened. But they figure out, like we said, the springs underneath the lake are transporting carbon dioxide upward and into the bottom of the lake. And all the pressure of the lake water keeps the gas accumulated at the bottom of the lake. So it keeps it from coalescing into bubbles and releasing to the top. So basically, it's like shaking a soda bottle. Yeah. And just like you keep shaking it and keep shaking it, and like nothing is releasing the bubbles. Yeah. Because this is an ongoing process of carbon dioxide being leached into the lake bottom. And as far as they know, there hasn't been a deadly outgassing event at, you know, this particular lake at Lake Nios for years and years. They theorize that something must have triggered the release of the carbon dioxide from the lake bottom. Right. So there are three theories that emerge from the scientists working there. The first is that there was a massive landslide of huge boulders crashing into the lake.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04So this is the story that was corroborated by Ephraim Che.
SPEAKER_02Right. And that's, I mean, I think the other lady, Humuna.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Halima.
SPEAKER_02Halima, I I think, didn't she say there was a noise?
SPEAKER_04She heard the rumble too. Yeah. Yeah. So they find evidence of a fresh lock uh rock slide on the face of one of the cliffs bordering the lake. So they're like, hmm, that's probably what happened. The second theory is that there was a fluke drop in air temperature, which would have um like caused cooler water to sink to the bottom of the lake because it would have been on the top, sank to the bottom, and then it would have detonated like the built-up diode.
SPEAKER_02Because it would have been even more pressure on top of it and it would have just like popped.
SPEAKER_04It would have disturbed, yeah. So it would have like disturbed the bottom of the lake. Yeah. And all that gas. And then the third theory is the same thing, but that like really strong wind, because Halima had reported strong wind, like a strong gust of wind caused a wave that mixed up the layers of water.
SPEAKER_02So my theory is it was the rock slide, and then the the carbon dioxide came up, and that was the wind. Like it came up so abruptly that she like.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, which would make sense. Yeah, because she's right on the shore.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So like she heard it and felt it, and but but Che, who was up on the hill, only heard it, didn't feel it. Right. So, whatever the cause, it's you know, they're basically like there was an outgassing, regardless of what caused it. So they figure out that when this outgassing occurred, when the water shot up through from the bottom of the lake to the surface, there was a 330-foot mountain of water and foam. Right. That shot up like waiting. 330 feet above the surface.
SPEAKER_02Whoa.
SPEAKER_04So that would have been the rumble. Dioxide.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, dioxide, like yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_04But then it would have so it shot up, then it dispersed. Yeah, it's and then an 82 foot wave is formed and hits the northern shore of the lake.
SPEAKER_01Oh, weird.
SPEAKER_04Because it caused such a disturbance.
SPEAKER_02But but why? Okay, so if it was 82 foot wave, like I'm I'm visualizing the the gas, like why would it reach people 16 miles away?
SPEAKER_04So the wave isn't what reaches people. The wave is created just from the disturbance of the water. In addition to the wave, you have the actual carbon dioxide that's misting up, and then that's what's floating.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wait a minute. Okay, so it's actually wave.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, an actual wave, like a water wave.
SPEAKER_02My bad. I'm I'm imagining the gas just coming up like as if it was going up that high and and then dispersing. I didn't realize it was the actual water, like that's what it does gets disturbed. It like shoots up and like goes out.
SPEAKER_04So the the disruption of the gas outgassing would have caused a 330-foot like water spout of foam, which then also causes an 80 to foot 82-foot water wave. But then that doesn't, but then there's also this thick fog cloud of carbon dioxide that also like pours out of the lake and like heads 16 miles in every direction.
SPEAKER_02Oh my or in one direction. Okay, so it's it caused a tsunami as well. Whoa. Was there evidence of that? Like a tsunami? Yes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Holy shit. So I have we're gonna get to that soon. Okay, so the reason the lake also had turned red, like chase on it. Yeah, I was wondering that it's because the explosion would have brought up iron-rich water from the bed of the lake, which oxidizes at the surface and would turn red. Cool. So that's another puzzle piece where they're like clearly something exploded from the bottom of the lake.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Okay. I was wondering. I was gonna ask you about that.
SPEAKER_04So then the wave part proving that the wave happened, the 82-foot wave. So there's a promontory in the lake, which is a it's uh it's high land that juts out into the lake. That's what a promontory is. It's totally stripped of all its vegetation. Oh my god. So this lends them, you know, to the theory that you know the wave would have potentially destroyed its vegetation, and also the water spout of carbon dioxide near it would have like also affected everything growing on the side of it.
SPEAKER_02Well, like what about the homes?
SPEAKER_04There was so this this was like a promontory, like a there was nothing over there.
SPEAKER_02Okay, got it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So the scientists are like, the more they work and collect data, they're like, yep, this had to be an explosion of carbon dioxide, obviously a huge amount, that thundered over the rim of the lake just on one side, where the side where Hilima Sully lived with her whole family.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_04And then it poured downhill at 45 miles per hour through two valleys and into the villages of Lower Nyos, Cha, Fang, Saboom, and Mashi.
SPEAKER_02Oh no, 45 miles an hour is fast. And Machi is 14 miles from the lake.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_04But still, still people were killed there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So much carbon dioxide, if you think about it, like because it's like it's like it's not like going into the air. It's like a fog. It's like yeah.
SPEAKER_04So when I watched a dramatic reenactment of it on YouTube, one of like many videos I watched, it's really crazy because it's like it's like this thick white fog that's maybe like four feet, five feet tall, that is just on the ground that is just like slithering forward. It's really crazy looking and like it's like slithering around these huts and like getting into every airspace.
SPEAKER_02Like, and you can't even see it in real life. No, you could see this. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04What? Oh, it was that thick.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Because remember, Ephraim Che saw the white mist come out of the lake. Okay, yeah. He saw it happen. And yeah, but people were like, it just comes up on you, or you're sleeping. So you don't even realize like what it is, or you think it's fog.
SPEAKER_02Was there anybody else that survived in that town?
SPEAKER_04Scattered a few. So I have another little survivor story. One of the villages in the Valley Saboom. Survivor Joseph Niquan. So he gave his account to whatever, you know, media outlet was covering it at the time. So he's he's awake when this happens at his home, but he he passes out. And then he wakes up in the middle of the night. And he says, I could not speak. I became unconscious. I could not open my mouth because then I smelled something terrible. I heard my daughter snoring in a terrible way, very abnormal. When crossing to my daughter's bed, I collapsed and fell. I was there till nine o'clock in the morning until a friend of mine came and knocked on my door. I was I was surprised to see that my trousers were red, had some stains like honey. I saw some starchy mess on my body. My arms had some wounds. I didn't really know how I got these wounds. I opened the door. I wanted to speak. My breath would not come out. My daughter was already dead. I went into my daughter's bed thinking that she was still sleeping. I slept till it was 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday. I managed to go over to my neighbors' houses. They were all dead. Oh, wow. I decided to leave. Most of my family was in womb, which is another town. I got my motorcycle. A friend whose father had died left with me for womb. As I rode through Nios, I didn't see any sign of any living thing, of any living thing. I was unable to walk, even to talk. My body was completely numb. So basically, he like this this like knocked him out when it happened at 9 p.m. ish. Then he like wakes up in the middle of the night and he realizes something's wrong, but then he gets knocked out again until 9 a.m. And then he like gets up again, realizes like his daughter is dead, and like passes out again and wakes up at 4:30 in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04So it was like this thing where people probably did survive, but then they woke up and whatever happened to their body, they succumbed to it again, you know.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And like that makes sense about like the first story you told about how the the boys that were crossing each other on the road like couldn't communicate.
SPEAKER_04They couldn't even talk, they couldn't even talk, and they felt like they were in a trance.
SPEAKER_02Well, this whole thing could have prevent be been prevented if someone would have listened to the guy, yeah, with this with the study. Yeah. Wow, that is so tragic.
SPEAKER_04Cigarette, as you call it. Cigarette cigarettes, cigarette cigars. So, okay, so the scientists, you know, they test the deep lake waters. There's tons of carbon dioxide in it. So still, so the explosion didn't clear out all the carbon dioxide. So this means that, oh shit, this could happen again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because it's still building up at an alarming rate. So the Cameroonian military forces most survivors out. They're like, you can't stay here, you gotta leave, because this could happen again.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04But these people are so poor that they have to go to refugee camps, which are usually terrible. Yeah. Yeah. So they all get like shoved into these shitty refugee camps.
SPEAKER_02That sucks. That's not cool. They just lost like so many people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's horrible. So the scientists are like, what the hell are we gonna do? You know, also like we're working under the assumption that at any time the lake could blow up again and we would all be dead. So they come up with several solutions. Um, so the first solution is drop a bunch of bombs into the lake and place basically blow up the lake, force it out, blow it up completely. Yeah. And then they're like, no, that's actually a incredibly reckless and dangerous plan. Like, that's such a dumb idea.
SPEAKER_02Would bombs like make the carbon dioxide like explode even more?
SPEAKER_04I think so. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I would like a chemical reaction, I would think. And also, what about the surrounding towns that like are yeah, maybe they forced all those people out?
SPEAKER_04Well, nobody was allowed to like pretty much be there anymore. It was all military controlled, and like scientists were kind of camping out, and then the people on above the lake over the cliffs, like Che, like those people were still there, like some of them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would have probably moved if I could. I mean, I get that they probably that's well, they yeah, they can't really get it. Yeah, I get it.
SPEAKER_04So then the next idea is um they're like, let's dump a ton of lime into the lake, which will neutralize the carbon dioxide. Um, lime is a mineral made from limestone, yeah. And you're not really supposed to breathe it in for very long. But then the powers that be somehow figured out that Cameroon and whoever was funding this collectively could not afford this. This would have been so expensive to get that much lime. So there was another prospective solution that was like digging tunnels into the lake bud to drain the saturated water. Again, it's like too expensive, too crazy, it's not gonna work. So the scientists get together and they figure out a low-tech approach, which basically involves running a pipe, like dropping a pipe from a boat all the way to the bottom of the lake. And the pipe is sticking out of out into the air.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And the idea is that you um pump water up from the bottom of the lake like a fountain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like just continuously. And so like it would relieve the carbon dioxide because you'd be pumping the carbon dioxide water up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like the water wouldn't be static.
SPEAKER_04It would just Yeah, like it would just come, it would just consistently like pump out carbon dioxide.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So it would, it would, it would maybe it wouldn't get rid of all the carbon dioxide, but it would like keep a release level that yeah, that that works for me. Yeah, it works for me too. Um, so this would continuously let out pressure and um you know, make it so there was not a buildup.
SPEAKER_02And I would do I would do like multiple pipes, not just like one.
SPEAKER_04Right. Yes, which is something that they yeah, we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04So um also the carbon dioxide, the amount that would be like piping out like in in a fountain, basically like a geyser, it would it would be harmless when it's dispersed in the air because it wouldn't be high concentration. Right. Yeah. So okay, so this is 1986. So this doesn't actually happen until 1990, this pipe plan, because it takes four years of funding and research and everything to actually install this pipe. And a team of engineers and scientists from France, from the University of Savoy, are the ones that are leading it. They install pipes um with the diameter of a garden hose in Lake Naos, and it's all being funded by the European Union and private sources.
SPEAKER_02A garden hose? That's the size of it?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. But guess what? It totally fucking works.
SPEAKER_02Whoa.
SPEAKER_04And the gas starts venting out perfectly, and everyone is like so happy. Oh yay! But why is it that small? Um, because that's still that's like what they they they were trying to make it as small as possible. It's all they needed. Okay, but then the money runs out. They their funding gets cut, and the Cameroonian government is like, we can't afford to install permanent degassing equipment.
SPEAKER_02No, they're super.
SPEAKER_04They want their country to not like well, yeah, but they're a super poor country.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I feel bad every time I say that. I'm not like, I feel very well, yeah, they just don't have the bad about saying that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then international aid agencies are like we allot our funds to natural disaster relief, not prevention. So this really isn't our thing. So we gotta move on from you guys. Okay, so that was you know, early 90s. So 1999, finally, the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance gives this group of scientists $433,000 for one permanent pipe to be installed at Lake Nile. So they're like, this is all we can give you. And the scientists, and then there's scientists in Cameroon, too. They're like, okay, we can work with this. Yeah. So January 2001, they finally have everything ready to install the pipe, and it's attached to a raft in the middle of the lake, uh-huh, and it's bigger now. Oh, good, and it's creepy, it's 666 feet long.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's creepy. Why did they have to make the 666 thing happen?
SPEAKER_04I don't know, but that's what they had to do. They're scientists, they're they're precise.
SPEAKER_02That's that creeps me out a little bit. Isn't that weird? Yeah, yeah. It's like the death lake with the they and of course the solutions like the death pole, right?
SPEAKER_04Right. Oh the Cameroonian army provides everybody there, like all the scientists with emergency oxygen tanks in case this doesn't work. Yeah, it causes the lake to explode.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was worried about the scientists too. Like yeah, totally in there and like for even you know, with all that time researching and then like installing the pipe, like just like tampering with it.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So they all retreat to higher ground and they remotely push a button to activate the pump that primes the pipe that would, you know, get get it happen, get it starting. Get it starting, get it started. Okay, and then within seconds of the French team pushing the button, a 148-foot spray shoots into the air and the degassing successfully begins.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_04So they all freak out, they're so happy because it works, there's no issues.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But the fact that it went, it shot up into the air like that is kind of scary too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it was like, I think it's what they expected.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because of just because of like the pressure and the everything to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so Lake Manoon, though, still needs, yeah, they need help.
SPEAKER_02I was wondering about that. I was like, what about that lake?
SPEAKER_04So in January 2003, um the scientists are all there and they are ready to install the pipe. They get the funding and everything. And this is two years after they installed it at like na or no. Two years after, four, four years after. No, two years after, because it was 2001 that they installed it in NIOS. Okay, okay. So they're all there, but then the local tribal, like the local tribe there is like, no. Oh, we need to do a five-hour ritual before you guys can do this.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that seems reasonable, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_04So that all these scientists who like their entire lives depend on data and like science and facts are like, okay, cool, do your ritual. We'll just chill. But the part, but the whole thing with the ritual was like they had to be involved in it because or or the local tribes would not let them proceed, and there's nothing the government could do about it. Like, they had to like work with the tribes, yeah. So they couldn't be like working on stuff during the ritual, they had to be in the ritual. That was the whole point.
SPEAKER_02I would have been I would have liked to be in the ritual, I think.
SPEAKER_04Really? Because I'll tell you about the ritual.
SPEAKER_02Oh god, I don't think you're gonna like it. Oh god, okay, go okay. So basically no fly on one's testicles.
SPEAKER_04It's wait, it's this, it's way worse. So basically, the locals want to contact the lake spirits in Lake Manoon and be like, Do you have our blessing to do this? So the Cameroonian military is like waiting on the lake shore, guarding the equipment, being like, Oh Christ, okay. And everyone's just like gathered around. So the first thing is a group of shamans mix together a blackish green paste in a ceremonial bowl under a tree on the shore. Then they all pick up corn stalks and an ancient wooden gong, and they march into the water in a procession, like banging the gong, like shaking the corn stalks, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04Then the head priest of the shamans beats the gong while crying out to the ancestors in the lake. Okay, totally fine. Then a bunch of local men get into canoes, paddle out into the waters, and throw offerings into the lake. So they're throwing like tons of fruit, salt, palm oil into the lake.
SPEAKER_02And at this point, I'd be so freaked out that they're gonna disturb and like make it an like a gas outing.
SPEAKER_04All of that to me is just like surfacey shit. It's like, okay, like do your chanting and like throwing shit right someplace. Then the shaman priest, again, not trying to be offensive to anyone, yeah. I just think this is silly, takes the bowl of the blackish green paste, dips his fingers in it. Okay, everyone has to line up and lick it off his fingers one by one. So sorry.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04This protects you from the lake spirit.
SPEAKER_03So you're you can you can imagine this greenish black paste though?
SPEAKER_04No idea. I couldn't find it. I Googled it. You are a scientist who's worked your way up through prestigious institutions, and you're licking like paste off of a shaman's finger. You don't know what it's like, it's just I'm sorry again, it's just like that's so is so wild. And you know, we're in a pandemic now, so this would never probably happen, but it's just it might be in some countries, you never know.
SPEAKER_02You know, religion's religion. We're probably gonna get I know, don't block list us.
SPEAKER_04It's just so great. But I think I think things that happen in the Catholic Church are insane, like I don't understand. So many things.
SPEAKER_02So many things.
SPEAKER_04So many things. This is not this is not Cameroonian shaman specific.
SPEAKER_02I and again, we both grew up very Catholic.
SPEAKER_04Not me.
SPEAKER_02I didn't grow up Catholic. I'm not a Catholic anymore. Well, I guess they would say I am, but I'm not.
SPEAKER_04Okay, then they do a bunch of Muslim prayers. Then there's an entire feast of rice and smoked fish. Which sounds delicious.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Then to really cap it off, they bring a live ram into the water, slit its throat, and let it bleed out into the lake in front of everyone. Like a sacrifice thing.
unknownOh man.
SPEAKER_04So you can imagine these like scientists from like France and Japan and the US are all sitting there, like, what? Yeah. Why is this happening? That's insane.
SPEAKER_02So I'm sorry, I keep thinking about going up to the shaman and licking his finger. God.
SPEAKER_04I guess I yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's yeah, that's funny.
SPEAKER_04I think you had to lick his finger as if like a ring was stuck. Oh you really didn't get in there.
SPEAKER_00Are you sure?
SPEAKER_04I don't know. I just feel like that's what would happen. So okay, so the ritual. So after the ram bleeds out into the lake. Oh, poor guy. The ritual's over. And I read an article where the author who wrote it was actually there during this whole thing. So that's why I have such a colorful description of everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So he said the Japanese scientists who were like patiently waiting, like jump up, they're like, okay, good. They fasten two rafts together, that the ones that are going to hold the vent pipe. And then a team of 15 people like get the rafts into the lake. And then two of the American scientists, the one of them being the um limnologist Kling, we talked about earlier, the lake scientists, they motor out into the lake in a dinghy with the rafts. They secure them in the lake. They attach instruments for measuring carbon dioxide and temperature. And then there's like a three-week period of like the pipe being like completely installed. And also they have sirens on the road near the lake that go off if like sensors pick up elevated levels of carbon dioxide. Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, so yeah, these like while they're working on it or like permanently, do they install these sirens?
SPEAKER_04No, like they're permanently there. And the scientists were were checking them to make sure they worked when they're there.
SPEAKER_01Good.
SPEAKER_04So this pipe is installed and it it works great. Um, and then in 2006, two more pipes are installed in Lake Manoon. So there's three. And then by 2009, three years later, the degassing is like complete there. There's like yeah, so it took three three years with three pipes to totally get all the carbon dioxide out from the bottom of the lake.
SPEAKER_02Why wouldn't it be uh why wouldn't it keep um what's my what am I supposed to say?
SPEAKER_04It does, it does keep leaching, but the pipes are working so well that they and then they'll kind of re-like they'll keep doing it, like they'll keep sucking the carbon dioxide out. Okay, but that's how long it took to get the built-up carbon out damn dioxide.
SPEAKER_02Imagine like what the ex like how many years the uh dioxide had been there when it actually went off.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I know, for hundreds of years, probably, or like it, you know, you know, because yeah, they don't quite know when like other degassing events happen, but there had to be some that alleviated. So then in 2011, a French team of scientists installed two more permanent pipes in Lake Nios, which only had one.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04And then that was the one that they originally installed it in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then by 2019, Lake Nios is completely emptied of hazardous carbon dioxide, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02Yay.
SPEAKER_04But no science. So they'll but they continuously get pumped out, like they continuously have like the degassing process through the pipes to make sure. So circling back to Che and Halima, Sulli, the survivors, we talked about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like what ended up happening to them. So the Cameroonian military allowed Che to stay, even though most people were forced to leave.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because his house was on high ground.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04His uncle, Che's uncle, who died from the asphyxiation, had seven children who all survived.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_04And in tribal tradition, Che was obligated to adopt them.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04So now Che and his wife had 11 children. Oh, wow. But the the scientists, um, like the French, Japanese, American, they all hired him to measure lake levels and guard their equipment when they're gone.
SPEAKER_02Oh, awesome.
SPEAKER_04So he actually ended up having a really, you know, having a good job and like making really good money for Cameroonian standards.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So a little silver lining with like the death of his family and having to like take on all these kids. Like he was, he got a job and like was able to like, you know, make decent a decent living. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and help the scientists because a lot of the locals, a lot of articles I read, the locals were like really invested in the scientists and they're yeah, you know, they were like a team. Like they were like, We'll help you with whatever you need, like, please just fix our lake.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04And then Halima, you know, who all of her children, her four children all died. Yeah, her husband, who survived, came back. Um, they ended up having five more children.
SPEAKER_01Aww.
SPEAKER_04They oh they bought more cows, they still live in the area, but she said in an interview that she only feels safe when the foreign scientists periodically are visiting. Oh, like it's still really scary to live there, I guess. I I don't yeah, but she must have horrible PTSD.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. And also, like, I know she probably doesn't have the means, like, but I I was hoping she would move higher up ground, like where Che is. I think she can.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they don't live there anymore, they live in like the area, but they don't live on that beach.
SPEAKER_02Oh, good. Hopefully, they went a little higher up. Yeah, I mean to think. Wow, that's so crazy. So, yeah, that's the story of Lake Nios. Did the lake ever turn back to its regular color?
SPEAKER_04Yep, it went back to its color like pretty quickly. Wow, but it's still considered the most dangerous lake in the world, like till this day, right now, like even with its degassing process.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, that is insane. That is like a movie.
SPEAKER_04I know. I want to like make a move, the movie about it.
SPEAKER_02You should make the movie about it.
SPEAKER_04I could see, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I can be in it.
SPEAKER_04Really? When are what are you gonna be?
SPEAKER_02Klima.
SPEAKER_04She's black. You are not. Don't try to scarlet Johanson this.
SPEAKER_02Let me, I could be a scientist.
SPEAKER_04Don't you dare scarlet Johanson this.
SPEAKER_02I won't.
SPEAKER_04Do you know what that means? No, she was criticized because she played an Asian woman in a movie. Everyone's like, you are not Asian. And then I think she tried to play a trans person in a movie, and everyone was like, You are not trans.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. Yeah, no, I don't know. I think it would be a great movie, though. Yeah, it totally would be. No one has made it yet. It's just so the facts and the the storylines are just like unbelievable.
SPEAKER_04I couldn't, I had never heard of this, and I I've been meaning to ask my parents because this would have happened a couple months after I was born if they like saw this on the news. This must have been national news.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it had to have been. But that's the weird part is I had no idea this ever, ever had happened, nor did I know the country, which is very sad. So now, like, did you are you gonna like put some cool like photos on like social for us to see? We always do. I know, I'm just excited. Silly goose. I can't wait to see the lakes and the pipes and anything you have.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. I have I'm excited. Yeah, all of that will be posted.
SPEAKER_02Very cool, good job.
SPEAKER_04Thanks, and also, you know, I'm such a lake person, and you're such an ocean person. And this was the first time I was like, Oh, I'm scared of lakes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02See, but not really, I'm not, but there are some beautiful lakes. I'm not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, don't lie about that. Why would you lie about beautiful lakes?
SPEAKER_02I don't hate all lakes. You know what freaks me out also is um I already kind of had a fear of lakes. You know why? Because there's like a lot of um places where there's like debris that you can get kind of caught up in. And like growing up in Texas, I knew I didn't know him personally. It was like an acquaintance of an acquaintance like was water skiing on the lake, and he when he like let go, he landed in a water moccasin nest and got bit and like died, which yeah, is like horrifying, yeah. And so that's kind of like I I grew up in Texas lakes, and then I was gonna say water moccasins, like and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04Like, maybe it's different, it's it's a hundred percent different.
SPEAKER_02There's no water moccasin nests in lakes up here, yeah. So that like really freaks me out, and then like that creepy story about what was it? She was on Glee, and she and her four-year-old were like swimming, and then she I don't know what happened to her.
SPEAKER_04She drowned, she they they think they jumped off the boat to swim. Uh-huh. It was they didn't have an anchor or anything, and it was just a um, it was a windy day, and oh, she didn't have a life vest on, but I think her son did.
SPEAKER_02But I thought she I thought they were good swimmers, like no.
SPEAKER_04And she was able to get him back up on the boat when they were like swimming after the boat, but she wasn't a strong swimmer and drowned.
SPEAKER_02Like, it doesn't make any sense to me of why she would if she wasn't a strong swimmer, why would she go in with her four-year-old son without a life vest? I mean, and then I her name just came to me, Naya Rivera. That's right. Yeah, that whole story freaked me out because I feel like they still don't know what happened. And then there was some speculation that that part of the lake had like debris under the water that she could have gotten trapped in or something.
SPEAKER_04It there, I think there is debris in the lake, but I think she just she should have had a life vest on she didn't have, and she wasn't a strong swimmer, and you can't if you're swimming for something against like a because you know the lake was windy with like current and waves, there was like a strong current in the lake. You can't, you're gonna exhaust yourself and you're not gonna be able to stay afloat.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's so I just still feel like there's something fishy about that story.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it could that could have happened in the ocean easily to her, too. It's the same thing. It's I know I don't think it's specific to the fact that she was in a lake. It's probably not, it probably would have been worse if it was the ocean. The ocean's more unpredictable and has sharks in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like lakes don't have sharks. I know, but they have like sometimes they have things, they don't have anything unless you're like in what like an alligator.
SPEAKER_04If you're yeah, like alligators, but people but in in that area they don't really swim in lakes, right?
SPEAKER_02Because of alligators, that's like in Texas you swim in lakes all the time, like it's a thing. There's no bodies of water unless you go to like Galveston or like Corpus Christi or whatever.
SPEAKER_04Do you have alligators in Texas?
SPEAKER_02Some parts, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's nothing in lakes up here that could kill you.
SPEAKER_02There's nothing in the line, no, I know that's what I like. Yeah, I need to get over that, but yeah, that that but that story freaked me out because I still feel like I don't get how that happened. Also, like, you know how like you could be a really strong swimmer but get a cramp and like not be able to swim. That's when you have to know how to float.
SPEAKER_04You have to be good about floating, yeah. But yeah, that's scary. I'm an excellent swimmer. I know I've said this before on this very podcast.
SPEAKER_02I'm a great swimmer too. I'm not excellent. Well, I grew up swimming. I mean, I can swim, I could swim in any float very well, but I did I yeah, I'll talk about it in the next episode. But I did get a weird cramp when I was in that water in Iceland, and like I freaked out, but I had like a life floating suit on because we were snorkeling. I'll tell it later, but yeah, yeah, it's just cramps freak me out like swimming.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it can definitely hinder your ability to swim well, but don't be afraid of lakes, everybody. Or be afraid of everything because that's what we bring to you because it's killer earth, killer earth, no bounce houses, no lakes, which is not part of Earth, it's just it's man-made, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you so much. That was awesome. Did you enjoy it? Yes, it was so good. Good. Um, and to everybody, thanks for waiting on our asses to get you this content. Um, there will be much more to come, so stay tuned and don't forget we have merch on our website, killer earthpodcasts.com. And if you have a survivor story of something earth related, please write us at killer earthpodcast at gmail dot com or write us for any other reason, I guess. Yeah. Say hi, tell us how you feel.
SPEAKER_04Never be afraid to tell us about your feelings.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, until next time. Damn, son.