Shadow of invisible death: The most dangerous lake in the world! Who killed thousands of voiceless and human beings without making any noise

As beautiful as nature is, sometimes it proves to be equally deadly. The story of ‘Lake Nyos’ of the African country Cameroon is one of the most scary and unsolved mysteries of nature, hearing which even today people’s souls tremble. That dark night of 1986 is still recorded in the pages of history, when a seemingly peaceful lake suddenly spewed out such a ‘demon’ that only deathly silence spread all around. That night, because of this lake, in the blink of an eye, more than 1,700 humans and thousands of voiceless animals died.

Turned into stones in sleep, faces of dead bodies turned white

That night of August 21, 1986, people were sleeping peacefully in the villages around Lake Nyos. Suddenly there was a tremendous commotion inside the lake and a huge cloud of gas rose above the water. This was no ordinary smoke, but invisible death. Within no time, about 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide gas spread into the surrounding valleys. Since this gas is heavier than air, it stuck to the ground surface and suffocated every living creature in its path.

The surprising thing was that those who died did not even know what happened to them. People lost their lives in the same condition in which they were sleeping. When the rescue team arrived the next morning, the sight there was heart-wrenching. Dead bodies of humans and cattle were scattered around and the faces of many of the dead bodies had turned strangely white due to suffocation.

What is the scientific secret of ‘Limnic Eruption’?

When scientists investigated this horrific incident, they named it ‘Limnic Eruption’. Actually, Lake Nyos is a lake built over a dead volcano. For years, carbon dioxide seeped from the depths of the volcano and accumulated in the lower surface of the lake. Due to the heavy pressure of water, this gas remained buried below, but that night perhaps some landslide or slight earthquake shook the water layers.

Due to this, the gas buried below suddenly came out like opening a soda bottle and it created an invisible ‘killer cloud’. Scientists believe that this is one of those rare phenomena of nature, which is possible only at selected places in the world. Today, special pipes have been installed to keep an eye on this lake so that this ‘monster of the lake’ can be prevented from awakening again in future.