U.S. first with disaster report

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 8

U.S. first with disaster report

NZPA-AP Yaounde A team of American scientists presented to the Cameroon Government yesterday the first written report on the eruption of lethal gas from Lake Nios that killed more than 1500 people. In a summary to their preliminary report the team of forensic pathologists said all the victims had died of respiratory or cardiac failure. The report largely excluded the possibility of seismic or volcanic activity as a cause of the gas cloud on August 21. ”We are about 95 per cent confident that the report is an accurate assessment” of the disaster, said Commander Michael Clark, a United States Navy forensic pathologist.

Commander Clark and his colleagues were called in by the United States Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to look into the

causes and composition of the gas cloud, which erupted from Lake Nios. The gas blanketed three nearby villages with deadly fumes and killed most of the inhabitants in their sleep. “We covered as many bases as we could, given the circumstances,” said Commander Glenn Wagner, another forensic specialist in the four-man team.

The experts spent two days in the remote northwest region of Cameroon examining Lake Nios, conducting autopsies and interviewing survivors at hospitals in the villages of Woum and Nkambe.

They said yesterday that their final conclusions awaited more analysis of human and animal tissue samples in the United States and the ending of studies by a group of American geologists who are still examining the volcanic lake region.

The pathologists’ report is the first to be officially presented to the Cameroon Government. An Italian team of scientists that left Cameroon on Monday was also to present its report this week. Israeli, French and Japanese teams are still in the field.

The American report summary says the victims apparently died from as-phyxiation-related respiratory or cardiac arrests, caused by the gas cloud, which contained large amounts of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, both deadly gases. Scientists reported that “the gas cloud probably changed character as it moved away from the lake, probably due to the oxidation of the sulphur compounds.” The sulphur compounds had combined with water droplets in the air to form acids, which burned many of the survivors on the

face, arms, trunk, and legs. The men said they had found no traces of hydrogen cyanide or carbon monoxide, initially thought to be possible causes of the deaths. They said more laboratory testing would verify the content of the toxic cloud. “The best medical evidence available shows that carbon dioxide is the culprit," said Commander Wagner. The victims had become unconscious seconds after inhaling the gas.

An “anaesthetic effect” of the gas would explain why so many of the survivors remained unconscious or too groggy to move for several days after the gas cloud had passed, he said. The report said, “virtually all survivors should recover fully with no disability,” including people who remained paralysed for a long time.