Pacific Standard: Is Lake Kivu Set to Explode?

Lake Kivu is divided into two fingers that run along the Democratic Republic of Congo's border with Rwanda. It is one of the African Great Lakes, a series of lakes in the eastern part of Africa's Rift Valley, and is home to the world’s 10th-largest inland island. It is a beautiful place where the color of sea and sky are often so close that it is impossible to discern a horizon. And at any moment, it could explode.

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Lake Kivu is full of promise for Rwanda’s future. It is saturated with methane gas that, if extracted properly, can be used to power a country where only 20 percent of residents have electricity. But the same lake that could hold the key to modernization is also one of the country’s biggest threats. Like the other two “killer lakes” in the world—Lake Monoun and Lake Nyos, both in Cameroon—Lake Kivu sits near a chain of volcanoes whose nearby springs pump carbon dioxide into the water. Under normal conditions, that gas and any others found in the lake, such as methane, sit under an enormous weight of pressure from the water above. As a result of the water pressure, the gases essentially dissolve and saturate the lake’s deepest waters.

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