In the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the authorities and the French entrepreneur Michel Halbwachs have finally launched degassing works in the Gulf of Kabuno, located in the northwest corner of Lake Kivu.
Authorities have been alerted for years to the massive presence of carbon dioxide capable of suffocating millions of people in the region. The toxic gas is located about twenty meters from the surface and the work should make it possible to extract it.
Joined by RFI, Didier Budimbu, Congolese Minister of Hydrocarbons, assures that this operation does not present any risk for the inhabitants of the towns bordering Lake Kivu.
” He [le dioxyde de carbone] is less than twenty meters from the surface and it is very dangerous. The President of the Republic has therefore decided to do this work. We all know the disaster that Cameroon experienced in the 1980s at Lake Nyos. What we are going to do is to be able to save human lives. The urgency is that with each passing day, the carbon dioxide is getting closer and closer to the surface and at the same time, we all know that on the side of the great Lake Kivu, where there are the houses, if ever there is there was an eruption at the level of the Nyamuragira volcano – which is still active – believe me, we risk having a disaster. This is why the government anticipated because to govern is to foresee. The Head of State has decided that we can move forward in this direction, hence the launch of this degassing. The work will last for years and it is every day that we will extract, little by little. With the Ministry of the Environment, everything has been put in place. Next door, there is also a company responsible for seeing how to reforest, how to try to place the necessary plants so that, each time we extract this gas, it will be absorbed by these plants. Everything has been put in place and there will be no danger for the population”.
Read also: DRC: after the volcanic eruption, a boost to degas the Gulf of Kabuno