Cameroon’s mysterious lake deaths

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

On 21 August 1986, hundreds of villagers in a remote part of Cameroon mysteriously died overnight, along with 3,500 livestock.

In the weeks-long investigation that followed, scientists tried to work out what had happened. How had hundreds died, but hundreds of others survived?

In 2011, scientists Peter Baxter and George Kling told Tim Mansel how they cracked the case.

(Photo: Dead cattle by the shore of Lake Nyos, Cameroon. Credit: Eric Bouvet/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult?
0:06.0	What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are?
0:10.0	I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas.
0:16.4	Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth.
0:23.0	Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003.
0:27.0	Listen on BBC Sounds. Welcome to the Witness History Podcast and the BBC World Service. Today we're taking you back 37 years to August 21st, 1986.
0:47.0	In the West African country of Cameroon,
0:50.0	a macabre mystery was unfolding on the shores of the remote Lake Nios.
0:55.0	In 2011, Tim Mansfield spoke to two scientists involved in cracking the case,
1:01.0	Peter Baxter and George Kling.
1:04.0	At about 11 o'clock in the night, I stood up.
1:09.0	We were not unable to stand up.
1:11.0	We were confused. I didn't know what has happened.
1:15.0	Villagers wake up to find that many of their friends and neighbors have died during the night.
1:21.0	Then the next morning I saw people lying, some dead, and our compound would lost so many people
1:29.6	about 75 people.
1:32.3	After some time we started to bury the people.
1:36.0	Lates from the West African state of Cameroon say hundreds of people have been killed after
1:41.0	inhaling poisonous gas from a volcanic lake in the northwest of the country.
1:45.2	This morning the country's president appealed for international aid though he said the death toll
1:49.9	only... The people who died, some 1700 of them, had all lived in villages near a volcanic lake, Lake
1:56.8	Nios, close to Cameroon's border with Nigeria.
	...

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