Africa
Family life on the Goma lava flow.
Goma is a city of around one million inhabitants situated on Lake Kivu in the Eastern Congo (DR Congo that is). It is just over the border from Rwanda and was home to millions of refugees during the Rwandan Genocide first the Tutsi, then the Huti. Revenge killings continued in Goma after the war in Rwanda had ended. When things really couldn't ghet any worse, the nearby volcano, Nyiragongo, erupted spewing out a stream of lava that flowed straight down the main street of the city. Fortunately, it was extremely fluid lava and it made a right turn a a T intersection and flowed out of the town again. Worse than the lava was the 50,000 tonnes/day of SO2 plus flourine gas that came out of the volcano. This destroyed almost all the crops in the area and so caused famine to go on top of war.
This is a photo of a family who live on the lava flow. They live in the burnt-out wreck of a van. It is a posed photo as they threw rocks at us to start with (in plentiful supply on a lava flow) and only calmed down when I gave them $5. They seemed to think that it was rude just walking into their home and taking photos, though another woman said it was really her land and she would throw them out and rebuild as soon as she could figure out what to do with the lava.
Nyiragongo is quieter now, though it has a permanent lava lake and it is liable to erupt at any time. There is also another, even larger volcano call Nyamuragira (bet you can't pronounce it) which is a little further away but capable of even bigger eruptions than Nyiragongo. Lak Kivu is also a danger as it has a dense layer of CO2 rich water at the bottom of the lake caused by volcanic activity. If this layer should be disturbed (eg by lava flowing into the lake), it could release the CO2 in a massive bubble which would kill all life within many kilometres of the lake. Goma is not in a good location for long term survival, but it has rich soil and people will always live there.
