MOSCOW, Reuter: At least 2,000 people have died in northwestern Cameroun from a leakage of toxic volcanic2s, the official Soviet news agency TASS quoted a Cameroun minister as saying.
TASS quoted information and Culture Minister Georges Ngnago as saying the causality figure was still incomplete because rescue teams had not been able to reach the center of the contaminated area for lack of protective gear.
TASS did not say in what context Nonage made his remarks. It said he was speaking in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé.
The gas came in a large cloud bubbling from the bottom of Lake Nios in northwestern Cameroun, where seismic activity was recently registered, and it engulfed several nearby villages, the Soviet
Agency said.
Earlier, travellers from the are told Reuters that the death toll could 1,500 or more.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 29, 1986
