Nyiragongo vulcano

Nyiragongo (also spelled Niragongo), one of the world's most beautiful and active volcanoes, is a large stratovolcano near Lake Kivu at the eastern border of DRCongo with Rwanda in the Virunga National Park.
It has a 1.2 km diameter summit caldera containing the world's most active and largest lava lake.
Nyiragongo is infamous for its extremely fluid lava that runs as water when the lava lake drains. On January 17, 2002, Nyiragongo erupted and the lava lake drained from fissures on its western flanks. The city centre of the Goma town, the capital of the East Virunga province, had been destroyed by voluninous lava flows. 200,000 people were left homeless, adding to the human desaster caused by frequent civil wars.

Sfondo:

Nyiragongo, located in the Western branch of the Rift Valley near Lake Kivu and the Congolese-Rwandese border, is one of the world's most active volcanoes. It is notorious for its lava lake and producing lateral eruptions with extremely fluid, fast-moving lava flows that repeatedly devastated areas around the volcano, such as the Goma desaster on January 2002, when a lava flow destroyed much of the city's commercial center and promted 200,000 people to flee.

The large lava lake contained in its deep summit crater, now active again, became famous in the 1960's and 70's when volcanologists such as the Kraffts and Tazieff studied it. It had been active for half a century before it drained in one of the volcano's recent most catastrophic eruptions in 1977: through openings in its outer flanks in 1977, a huge lava flow poured out and killed hundreds of people. A similar event happened again in January 2002, when lava flows from flank vents drained the lake and cut through Goma, reaching Lake Kivu.
In contrast to its neighbor volcano, Nyamuragira,- a typical, and very active shield volcano comparable with Mauna Loa,- the 3470-m-high Nyiragongo displays the steep slopes of a stratovolcano. Terraces inside the steep-walled, 1.2-km-wide summit crater mark levels of former lava lakes, which have been observed since the late-19th century.
Two older volcanoes, Baruta and Shaheru, are partially overlapped by Nyiragongo on the north and south and look like lateral cones. About 100 parasitic cones are located primarily along radial fissures south of Shaheru, east of the summit, and along a NE-SW zone extending as far as Lake Kivu. Many cones are buried by voluminous lava flows that extend long distances down the flanks of the volcano.

Nyiragongo Photos:

Con l'avvicinarsi del mattino, la luce intensa rossa e gialla della lava, ancora una volta si mescola con l'azzurro del cielo, creando uno spettacolo unico. ... (Photo: T...	Again the Nyiragongo lava lake. The red glow of the lava was clearly visible through the day. (Photo: shinkov)	Le luci della città Goma sullo sfondo a sinistra mi ricordano in piedi sul vulcano Etna e guardando in basso a Catania ... (Photo: Tom Pfeiffer)
È ora di svegliarsi e godere l'ultima ora di buio prima dell'alba! Come al solito, Gilles è già davanti a tutti gli altri e in piedi al cra ... (Photo: Tom Pfeiffer)	Morning comes fast! A last photo of the lava lake in its giant crater, before fumes become too dense. Jean Michel, at the lower right, merges with the ground. Mikeno and ...	Crepuscolo serale a bordo nei pressi del campeggio. (Photo: Tom Pfeiffer)

Latest satellite images

See also: Sentinel hub | Landsat 8

Links and recommended reading:

Publications:

• P. Allard P. Baxter, Halbwachs M., Kasareka M., J.C. Komorowski, J.L. Joron (2003), l'eruzione effusiva più distruttivo nella storia moderna: Nyiragongo 2003, Geophysical Research Abstracts, v. 5, 11970

Older publications:

• Verhoogen, Jean: Les Volcans Virunga et l'ruzione du Nyamlagira de 1938 / par J. Verhoogen, S. 326-353. (Frankfurt University Library, Germania)
• Meyer, Andr: Studio del vulcano Nyiragongo: una relazione / da Thure G. Sahama e AndrMeyer. - Bruxelles: Hayez, 1958 (Frankfurt University Library)