Hello, my name's Mrs. Hoggett.

Today's lesson is the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, taken from the unit, Tectonic Hazards: Why is the Earth Restless? Today we're going to be exploring one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes.

I hope you enjoy.

Today's outcome is to explain why Mount Nyiragongo erupted and the impacts of the eruption.

We have some keywords today that are useful to know before we start.

If there's any here that you're not sure about, it can be helpful to pause the video and take a note of them.

Let's start with constructive plate boundary.

This is a type of plate boundary that you might have heard about in a previous lesson where you looked at the four different types of plate boundaries.

It is where two tectonic plates separate, so the plates are moving apart.

Economic impacts and social impacts are our next two keywords.

Now, impacts means consequences, so things that happen because of something, and economic means to do with money.

So when we have a look at economic impacts, the definition is consequences that relate to the way money is made, lost or spent.

Social impacts are consequences that relate to people's quality of life.

For example, healthcare.

Infrastructure is our last key term, and this means all the basic systems in a country such as transport and power supply.

If we didn't have these things, it would stop the country functioning.

If you need to pause the video, feel free to do so now.

So today's lesson is in two sections.

First of all, we have what caused the volcanic eruption? And then what were the impacts of the volcanic eruption? So firstly, what caused the volcanic eruption? Let's take a look.

Mountain Nyiragongo is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.

It's really unusual in that it has an active lava lake.

This lava lake that you can see here is 60 metres wide, which is the widest larva lake that there is.

That does vary a little bit from time to time, but roughly 60 metres, which is biggest in the world.

Not only is it big, but it is also active.

For the last few decades, it has not stopped being an active larva lake.

Quick check time now.

So Mountain Nyiragongo, does it have, A, the world's largest lava lake, B, the world's largest volcano, or C, is it the world's lowest volcano? Which one's correct? Well done.

Yes, so it's the world's largest lava lake.

So let's locate this volcano.

Mount Nyiragongo is located in Africa, in Central Africa, and actually the country it's in is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, often referred to the DRC.

It's on the border with Rwanda, and you can see the arrow pointing to it on the map here.

Now the reason it's located here is because it's on a constructive plate boundary.

Remember, a constructive plate boundary is where two plates are separating, and this plate boundary is called the East African Rift System, where the African plate is splitting into two separate plates.

It's splitting into the Nubian plates and the Somali plates.

You can see on our map here the Nubian African plates and the Somali African plates have been labelled on in whites.

And you can also see the direction of plate movements.

The two plates are separating, and that is causing this constructive plate boundary where we have the East African Rift System.

We're gonna check for understanding now.

Which map correctly shows the tectonic plate movement in Africa? Is it A, B, or C? Take a look at the white arrows on them to help you.

Well done.

Yes, it's B.

So this shows a constructive plate boundary, which is what is causing the volcano.

So at the constructive plate boundary, the African plate is splitting apart.

We can see a diagram here this time showing the African plate being split into the Nubian plate and the Somali plates.

This allows the hot molten rock called magma to rise from the mantle up to the surface, creating volcanic eruption.

When the magma erupts from the surface of the Earth, it is lava.

As a lava cools, it forms new crust and creates dramatic mountain peaks, including Mount Nyiragongo.

Let's take one final look at that diagram.

So the two plates are separating.

Magma rises up and erupts through the crust.

That's our volcanic eruption.

When that lava then cools and forms hard rock, that forms the high mountains, for example, Mount Nyiragongo.

Time for another check for understanding.

What are the missing words? The East African Rift System is a? Plate boundary, which allows hot melting rock, what's that called? From the mantle to rise up to the surface, creating a volcanic eruption.

I've put the words for you to choose from at the bottom.

What's missing? Well done.

So we've got the East African Rift System is a constructive plate boundary, which allows hot molten rock, also known as magma, from the mantle to rise up to the surface, creating a volcanic eruption.

Well done everyone.

Great effort.

So let's have a look now online and take a look at this volcano and see what it looks like in real life.

So this image is a satellite image that has been turned into a 3D image to show us what this volcano looks like.

And the first thing I notice here is that there's a massive crater at the top to hold that massive lava lake.

On the 22nd of May, 2021, Mount Nyiragongo go began to erupt and it was almost a decade after its last eruption in 2002.

So actually, that's not a huge amount of time between eruptions and the 2002 eruption had caused quite a lot of problems to say the very least.

We can see here what happened in terms of the lava flows.

Scientists were monitoring the volcano and they previously warned that the volcano's lava lake in its crater was filling up.

When the eruption happened, the lava poured downside of the volcano from the vents to the east and south of the main crater.

So the lava didn't actually come from the main crater, it came from side vents, and you can see these located on the map.

So at the top of each of these orange flows, we can see a little white triangle and this is where the lava erupted from.

So this map from the UN shows that the lava flowed south from Nyiragongo towards the city of Goma.

It actually stopped short of Goma, which is brilliant.

Didn't hit the city, that's good news, but it did get very close to the airport.

Luckily, did not hit it.

It stayed a few kilometres away, which was really good and better than the previous eruption in 2002, where the lava flows actually got all the way to the city.

Mount Nyiragongo is known for its fast moving lava flows.

Flows can be up to 60 kilometres per hour, which is super speedy for lava when you compare it to other volcanoes around the world.

Because of this, the lava can travel fast and far, and that can cause problems for evacuation as people don't have the time that they need to get out of the area that is at risk.

It is due to a really fluid lava combined with really steep slopes of the mountain.

The local population are also at risk from dangerous gases that are emitted from the lava as it cools over time.

These gases collect in low- lying hollows and actually these gases are extremely dangerous because they can stop people being able to breathe in oxygen.

Gases other than oxygen are collecting in these hollows.

So for example, carbon dioxide, because there's so much carbon dioxide there and not enough oxygen, you can't breathe.

You literally can't breathe where this gas gathers.

Luckily we know that the gases gather in quite low lying areas, so they've been able to educate the local population about the risk.

One of the ways in which scientists and charities are educating the local population is by taking goats to the zones where the gases collect.

In Swahili, these zones are referred to as (speaking in Swahili) or evil wind.

When the goats are taken to these hollows, these (speaking in Swahili) zones, they can't breathe, just in the same way that humans wouldn't be able to if they were in these hollows.

That means that the goats actually collapse.

They're then taken out and resuscitated, so they are okay.

However, that image of seeing a goat collapse and knowing what could happen if humans were trapped in areas like this, means that people really understand the risks and avoid these zones and make sure their children and livestock are kept away from these risky areas.

So it's a very powerful message.

The city of Goma is located only 10 kilometres to the south of Mountain Nyiragongo.

You can see Goma located on the map here and Mount Nyiragongo as well.

A real quick check for understanding.

Which direction was the camera facing when this photo was taken in Goma.

Have a look at the photo on the left-hand side.

We can see in the foreground, that means at the front of the photo, there's some buildings, and in the background we can see Mount Nyiragongo.

Now where would the photographer have had to be facing, so where would they have been looking in order to take that photo? Which direction? So we're thinking compass directions here.

So on the right-hand side, we've got the satellite image, which shows us the location of the city, Goma, and it also shows us the location of the volcano, mountain Nyiragongo So in order for a photographer to be facing the volcano from the city, which direction would they have to be facing? You can take a look at the compass on the screen now to help you.

Well done.

Yes, you're right.

You can either have said north or northeast.

Either would be perfectly fine.

Time for our practise task now.

First of all, I'd like you to describe the location of Mountain Nyiragongo.

Then I would like you to locate it on the map.

Now if you don't have this specific map, you might have another map that you could use.

If you really don't have anything that you can locate it on, I would suggest you skip that question.

Question three, add the direction of plate movement to the diagram using arrows.

And if you again don't have this diagram, you can draw a very simple version of it out.

Question four, which type of plate boundary is here? And question five, what is the name of this plate boundary of this specific one? Right, time to pause the video now to give yourself time to do this.

Good luck everyone.

I'm sure you do really well.

Well done everyone.

Let's take a look at the answers together.

So your answers may look like this.

When we're describing the location of Mount Nyiragongo, we could say it's located in central Africa, so we're using the continents here and we're saying whereabouts in the continent.

Then we're saying in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so we're naming the country, near to the border of Rwanda.

So identifying where within that country it is.

Locate it on the map.

So you can see here I've done an arrow.

You may have done a dot or a star or a volcano symbol.

That's absolutely fine.

Question three, add the direction of plate movement to the diagram using arrows.

So you should have had the arrows separating, moving apart.

Which type of boundary is here? So we've got constructive.

And what is the name of this plate boundary? So this is the East African Rift System.

Well done everyone.

Let's move on to the second part of our lesson now.

What were the impacts of the eruption? The DRC is the second largest country in Africa.

Despite being rich in natural resources, including gold and cobalt as well as copper, it is a low-income country, meaning it's not very wealthy.

Colonialism and conflict have had an impact on its economic development.

What does this mean for its people? Feel free to pause the video for discussion.

So most people do face challenges linked to poverty.

In the city of Goma, services are particularly strained as it hosts thousands of people displaced by war in neighbouring Rwanda as well.

The government lacks funds, making disaster management more difficult.

So you can see here on the rights a photograph of Goma and it is home to many people who have fled neighbouring Rwanda with a few belongings.

Seismic monitoring was in place around Mount Nyiragongo.

On the 10th of May in 2021, there were warnings that the earthquake activity had increased.

So this is a sign that volcano might erupt and many earthquakes occurred in the local area before and after the 2021 eruption.

So while this was helpful, such signs do not allow scientists to accurately predict the date and time of a volcanic eruption.

And in the DRC, concerns were raised about the monitoring of Mount Nyiragongo in 2020.

So this is a year before this eruption, and this was because the international funding for work with the local volcanologists had been cancelled.

The 2021 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo had a range of impacts on people and property.

The impacts can be categorised into social and economic impacts.

The social impacts first.

So they did unfortunately include deaths, displacement and health risks.

The economic impacts included the damage to infrastructure and also loss of livelihoods.

We're going to go into each of these in a little bit more detail, and it's worth pointing out at this stage that we will be discussing deaths not in huge amount of detail, but we will be discussing it, and that's something to be aware of, as we're moving through the slides.

So our first impact is deaths.

At least 32 people lost their lives due to the 2021 Nyiragongo eruption.

These deaths were caused by the lava flow, which engulfed villages before the full evacuation had happened.

So remember that lava flow didn't get all the way to the city of Goma.

Unfortunately, there were villages in the path of the lava flows and that did cause deaths.

Also carbon dioxide building up the low-lying areas, stopping people breathing.

We've discussed this risk, haven't we? So this did cause deaths because people could not breathe because the air became too toxic.

Accidents during the evacuation or from falling buildings due to earthquakes were another cause of death.

And actually that evacuation process is a really important process to make sure that people escape the area of risk, but also that they do that in a safe way that doesn't cause further accidents.

In the past, goats have been released in order to monitor evacuation routes.

So the goats model human behaviour as they try and escape, and as they do that the humans watching them could monitor, okay, this area has obstructions, which would slow people down if they were going to evacuate, or this area becomes a bottleneck when lots of goats, well, in the case of a real evacuation, lots of people would end up in one zone, funnelled into one area, and that would actually slow evacuation down.

So it is a really interesting technique to try and predict what problems there might be with evacuation and try and prevent them before they happen.

However, accidents still did occur and deaths did occur from the way in which evacuation happens.

When Mount Nyiragongo last erupted, so this was in 2002, 245 people died.

So that's a lot more.

You can see that on the graph here.

So the three main recent eruptions were 1977, 2002, and 2021, and we can see that in 2002, there was a huge number of deaths compared to this more recent eruption.

The reason why there were few deaths was because the local communities were better informed about the risks.

There'd been a lot of education about the risks of the Nyiragongo zones, the areas where there was carbon dioxide concentrated in the hollows and how to avoid these areas, as well as evacuation, signs of eruption, all of this sort of thing.

The government this time urged residents out of the city and to evacuate as a precaution.

Lastly, lava flows stopped short of Goma this time.

In 2002, the lava flows got all the way to the city, and that caused a lot of deaths.

Right, time for a check for understanding now.

More people died in the 2021 Nyiragongo eruption than in any previous eruption.

Is this true or false? Get ready to tell me why as well.

Well done, that was false.

Can you tell me why? There were far fewer deaths as a result of the eruption in 2021 compared to the event of 2002 when tragically, 245 people died.

This was because the local communities were better informed of the risks and the city of Goma was less affected by the lava flows.

Now we're moving on to having a look at displacement.

So what does displacement actually mean? Many people had to evacuate the area and those whose homes have been destroyed were made homeless.

And this is the fundamentals of displacement.

It's the idea that people are displaced or moved away from their homes so they can no longer live and work in the place that they would normally do that.

Over 450,000 people were displaced, so many to temporary shelters, which were really overcrowded and lacked good sanitation and water supply.

So that has its own consequences as well.

So impacts on health were really wide ranging.

First of all, we had breathing difficulties due to the toxic gases and ash emitted.

So it's not just the gases, which we've discussed already this lesson, but also the ash can cause problems in the lungs.

Also injuries, including burns from the hot debris and falling buildings.

So lots and lots of impacts on health on top of the death toll we've discussed.

The survivors were really vulnerable to infections and diseases such as COVID-19 due to the damaged water pipes and the overcrowded shelters.

So we mentioned the fact that people being displaced leads to knock-on consequences and it's really hard to stay healthy when you're living in these sorts of temporary situations.

Many survivors experience post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, depression and anxiety due to the loss of lives, homes, and livelihoods.

We're going to discuss some of the economic impacts now.

First of all, loss of livelihoods.

The damage to infrastructure markets and businesses as well as agricultural land causes a huge loss of income for many people, and that's what a livelihood is.

It's how you earn your money, how you make your income.

So because there was so much damage, people just could not go to work and make a living that you used to.

This worsens the quality of life significantly for many people in an area that was already facing significant challenges.

Our last impact is another economic impact.

We're looking at infrastructure damage now.

So infrastructure was badly damaged leading to costly rebuild and repair, and it included 3,600 homes as well as schools and roads.

You can see here that this road is being repaired and it clearly has such an impact on the lives of people living there.

As you can see, so many people gathered to see this repair happen.

Right, time for check for understanding now.

How would you categorise this impact? Infrastructure was badly damaged, leading to costly rebuild and repair.

Is it A, environmental, B, social, or C, economic? Well done.

It's economic, isn't it? I could understand if you'd also categorise that social because there are a lot of knock-on impacts for society about being able to access, for example, a hospital.

So I wouldn't necessarily say you are wrong if you had said social as long as you've justified that correctly.

Right, our final to practise task now.

Using a table, I would like you to categorise these impacts into social and economic categories.

So I've got a little table on the right-hand side so you can see what I'm talking about.

I would like you to include the impacts of Mount Nyiragongo that we've talked about.

So we're talking about the 2021 eruption today.

So over 32 people died, over 450,000 people were displaced.

There was a loss of income due to the damage to infrastructure, markets, businesses and agricultural land.

There was costly rebuild and repair and many survivors suffered from injuries, breathing difficulties, disease and mental health problems. So if you could categorise that into the correct section of the table, that would be brilliant.

Then I'd like you to rank the impacts from one to five, one being the worst and five being the least worst.

I don't think we can say any of them are good impacts here on this list.

They're all negative impacts.

Explain why you chose the worst impact.

Now for the last two, question two and three, there is no right or wrong answer.

This is about you thinking through what you believe to be the worst consequence, right? Pause the video now to give yourself time to do this.

Well done everybody.

Let's take a look at the answers.

So first of all, question one, using a table, categorise the impacts into social and economic categories.

So on the left-hand side, we've got the social impacts.

I've put over 32 people died.

Over 450,000 people were displaced.

Many survivors suffered from injuries, breathing difficulties, disease and mental health problems. These should be what you have in the social side of your table.

On the economic side, we have the costly rebuild and repair, and we've also got the loss of income due to damage to infrastructure, markets, businesses and agricultural land.

You can see that I've ranked these from one to five with one being the worst, and I decided to go with 450,000 people being displaced as the worst.

I found it really hard to choose though.

Definitely 32 people dying is horrific as well.

So you may well have gone for that.

You may have gone for something else.

Let's have a look at why I chose over 450,000 people being displaced.

So the reasoning was as so many people were displaced, it led to overcrowding of shelters and this increased the risk of catching diseases.

So that's my justification for that one.

You may have gone something different, that's absolutely fine.

It'd be interesting to discuss and compare your answers.

Please feel free to pause the video now if you'd like to do that.

Time for our summary now.

Mount Nyiragongo is a volcano located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the East African Rift System.

On the 22nd of May in 2021, it began to erupt.

This followed a deadly eruption in 2002, which reached the city of Goma.

When the eruption happens, lava poured down the sides of volcano.

At least 450,000 people were displaced or evacuated due to these lava flows.

I hope you found today's lesson interesting.

It's a fascinating volcano, and I hope to see you again next time.