Lake Nyos disaster
1986 limnic eruption in Cameroon
On 21 August 1986, a limnic eruption at Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon killed 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
The eruption triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The gas cloud initially rose at nearly and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, suffocating people and livestock within of the lake.
A degassing system has since been installed at the lake, with the aim of reducing the concentration of CO2 in the waters and therefore the risk of further eruptions. Along with the Lake Monoun disaster two years earlier, it is one of only two recorded limnic eruptions in history.
Eruption and gas release.
What triggered the catastrophic outgassing is not known. Most geologists suspect a landslide, but some believe that a small volcanic eruption may have occurred on the bed of the lake. A third possibility is that cool rainwater falling on one side of the lake triggered the overturn. Others still believe there was a small earthquake, but because witnesses did not report feeling any tremors on the morning of the disaster, this hypothesis is unlikely. The event resulted in the supersaturated deep water rapidly mixing with the upper layers of the lake, where the reduced pressure allowed the stored CO2 to effervesce out of solution.
It is believed that about of gas was released. The normally blue waters of the lake turned a deep red after the outgassing, due to iron-rich water from the deep rising to the surface and being oxidised by the air. The level of the lake dropped by about a metre and trees near the lake were knocked down.
Scientists concluded from evidence that a column of water and foam formed at the surface of the lake, spawning a wave of at least that swept the shore on one side.
Since carbon dioxide is 1.5 times the density of air, the cloud hugged the ground and moved down the valleys, where there were various villages. The mass was about thick, and travelled downward at . For roughly , the gas cloud was concentrated enough to suffocate many people in their sleep in the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum. About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, lesions, and paralysis as a result of the gas cloud.
It is a possibility that other volcanic gases were released along with the CO2, as some survivors reported a smell of gunpowder or rotten eggs, which indicates that sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide were present at concentrations above their odour thresholds. However, CO2 was the only gas detected in samples of lake water, suggesting that this was the predominant gas released and as such the main cause of the incident.
Effects on survivors.
Reporters in the area described the scene as "looking like the aftermath of a neutron bomb." One survivor, Joseph Nkwain from Subum, described himself when he awoke after the gases had struck:<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />I could not speak. I became unconscious. I could not open my mouth because then I smelled something terrible ... I heard my daughter snoring in a terrible way, very abnormal ... When crossing to my daughter's bed ... I collapsed and fell. I was there till nine o'clock in the morning (of Friday, the next day) ... until a friend of mine came and knocked at my door ... I was surprised to see that my trousers were red, had some stains like honey. I saw some ... starchy mess on my body. My arms had some wounds ... I didn't really know how I got these wounds ... I opened the door ... I wanted to speak, my breath would not come out ... My daughter was already dead ... I went into my daughter's bed, thinking that she was still sleeping. I slept till it was 4.30 in the afternoon ... on Friday (the same day). (Then) I managed to go over to my neighbours' houses. They were all dead ... I decided to leave ... (because) most of my family was in Wum ... I got my motorcycle ... A friend whose father had died left with me (for) Wum ... As I rode ... through Nyos I didn't see any sign of any living thing ... (When I got to Wum), I was unable to walk, even to talk ... my body was completely weak.Following the eruption, many survivors were treated at the main hospital in Yaoundé, the country's capital. It was believed that many of the victims had been poisoned by sulphur-based gases. Poisoning by these gases would lead to burning pains in the eyes and nose, coughing and signs of asphyxiation similar to being strangled.
Interviews with survivors and pathologic studies indicated that victims rapidly lost consciousness and that death was caused by CO2 asphyxiation. At nonlethal levels, CO2 can produce sensory hallucinations, such that many people exposed to CO2 report the odor of sulfuric compounds when none are present. Skin lesions found on survivors represent pressure sores, and in a few cases exposure to a heat source, but there is no evidence of chemical burns or of flash burns from exposure to hot gases.
De-gassing.
The scale of the disaster led to much study on how a recurrence could be prevented. Several researchers proposed the installation of degassing columns from rafts in the middle of the lake. The principle is to slowly vent the CO2 by lifting heavily saturated water from the bottom of the lake through a pipe, initially by using a pump, but only until the release of gas inside the pipe naturally lifts the column of effervescing water, making the process self-sustaining.
Starting from 1995, feasibility studies were successfully conducted, and the first permanent degassing tube was installed at Lake Nyos in 2001. Two additional pipes were installed in 2011. In 2019 it was determined that the degassing had reached an essentially steady state and that a single one of the installed pipes would be able to self-sustain the degassing process into the future, indefinitely maintaining the CO2 at a safe level, without any need for external power.
Similar danger suspected at Lake Kivu.
Following the Lake Nyos disaster, scientists investigated other African lakes to see if a similar phenomenon could happen elsewhere. In 2005, Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2,000 times larger than Lake Nyos, was also found to be supersaturated, and geologists found evidence that outgassing events around the lake happened about every thousand years.
However, a study undertaken in 2018 and released in 2020 found flaws in the 2005 study, including a possible bias in the conversion of concentrations to partial pressures, to an overestimation of concentrations, or to a problem of calibration of sensors at high pressure. The 2020 study found that when these errors were accounted for, the risk of a gas eruption at Lake Kivu did not seem to be increasing over time.
References.
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Lake Nyos
Crater lake in the Northwest Region of Cameroon
Lake Nyos ( ) is a crater lake in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, located about northwest of Yaoundé, the capital. Nyos is a deep lake high on the flank of an inactive volcano in the Oku volcanic plain along the Cameroon line of volcanic activity. A volcanic dam impounds the lake waters.
A pocket of magma lies beneath the lake and leaks carbon dioxide (CO2) into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. Nyos is one of only three lakes known to be saturated with carbon dioxide in this way, and therefore prone to limnic eruptions (the others being Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda).
In 1986, possibly as the result of a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of CO2, which suffocated 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby towns and villages, the most notable one being Chah, which was abandoned after the incident. The limnic eruption not only devastated human and livestock populations but also had a profound impact on the diverse aquatic life, including tilapia, crabs, snails, and frogs, leading to a significant loss of biodiversity in and around the lake.
Though not completely unprecedented, it was the first known large-scale asphyxiation caused by a natural event. To prevent a recurrence, a degassing tube that siphons water from the bottom layers to the top, allowing the carbon dioxide to leak in safe quantities, was installed in 2001. Two additional tubes were installed in 2011.
Today, the lake also poses a threat because its natural wall is weakening. A geological tremor could cause this natural levee to give way, allowing water to rush into downstream villages all the way into Nigeria and allowing large amounts of carbon dioxide to escape.
Geography.
Lake Nyos lies within the Oku Volcanic Field, located near the northern boundary of the Cameroon Volcanic Line, a zone of volcanoes and other tectonic activity that extends southwest to the Mt. Cameroon stratovolcano. The field consists of volcanic maars and basaltic scoria cones.
Formation and geologic history.
Lake Nyos is located south of the dirt road from Wum, about to the west, to Nkambé in the east. Villages along the road in the vicinity of the lake include Cha, Nyos, Munji, Djingbe, and Subum. The lake is from the Nigerian border to the north, and lies on the northern slopes of the Massif du Mbam, drained by streams running north, then northwest, to the Katsina-Ala River in Nigeria which is part of the Benue River basin.
Lake Nyos fills a roughly circular maar in the Oku Volcanic Field, an explosion crater caused when a lava flow interacted violently with groundwater. The maar is believed to have formed in an eruption a maximum of 12,000 years ago, and is 1,800 m (5,900 ft) across and 208 m (682 ft) deep. The area has been volcanically active for millions of years—after South America and Africa were split apart by plate tectonics about 110 million years ago, West Africa also experienced rifting, although to a lesser degree. The rift is known as the Mbéré Rift Valley, and crustal extension has allowed magma to reach the surface along a line extending through Cameroon. Mount Cameroon also lies on this fault line. Lake Nyos is surrounded by old lava flows and pyroclastic deposits.
Although Nyos is situated within an extinct volcano, magma still exists beneath it. Approximately directly below the lake resides a pool of magma, which releases carbon dioxide and other gases; the gases then travel upward through the earth. The fumes then dissolve in the natural springs encircling the lake, ultimately rising to the surface of the water and leaching into the lake. But with advanced in technology now there are machinery placed at the bottom of the lake to remove the gases, so as to make the inhabitants of the area free from danger.
The lake waters are held in place by a natural dam composed of volcanic rock. At its narrowest point, the wall measures high and wide.
Gas saturation.
Lake Nyos is one of only three lakes in the world known to be saturated with carbon dioxide—the others are Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. A magma chamber beneath the region is an abundant source of carbon dioxide, which seeps up through the lake bed, charging the waters of Lake Nyos with an estimated 90 million tonnes of CO2.
Lake Nyos is thermally stratified, with layers of warm, less dense water near the surface floating on the colder, denser water layers near the lake's bottom. Over long periods, carbon dioxide gas seeping into the cold water at the lake's bottom is dissolved in great amounts.
Most of the time, the lake is stable and the CO2 remains in solution in the lower layers. However, over time, the water becomes supersaturated, and if an event such as an earthquake or landslide occurs, large amounts of CO2 may suddenly come out of solution.
1986 disaster.
Although a sudden outgassing of CO2 had occurred at Lake Monoun in 1984, a similar threat from Lake Nyos was not anticipated. However, on August 21, 1986, a limnic eruption occurred at Lake Nyos, triggering the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons (some sources state as much as 1.6 million tonnes) of CO2. This gas cloud rose at nearly and spilled over the northern lip of the lake into a valley running roughly east–west from Cha to Subum. It then rushed down two valleys branching off to the north, displacing all of the air and suffocating 1,746 people within of the lake, mostly rural villagers, as well as 3,500 livestock. The villages most affected were Cha, Nyos, and Subum.
Scientists concluded from evidence that a fountain of water and foam formed at the surface of the lake. The huge amount of water rising suddenly caused much turbulence in the water, spawning a wave of at least that would scour the shore of one side.
It is not known what triggered the catastrophic outgassing. Most geologists suspect a landslide, but some believe that a small volcanic eruption may have occurred on the bed of the lake. A third possibility is that cool rainwater falling on one side of the lake triggered the overturn. Others still believe there was a small earthquake, but as witnesses did not report feeling any tremors on the morning of the disaster, this hypothesis is unlikely. Whatever the cause, the event resulted in the rapid mixing of the supersaturated deep water with the upper layers of the lake, where the reduced pressure allowed the stored CO2 to effervesce out of solution.
It is believed that about of gas was released. The normally blue waters of the lake turned a deep red after the outgassing, due to iron-rich water from the deep rising to the surface and being oxidised by the air. The level of the lake dropped by about a metre and trees near the lake were knocked down.
Degassing.
The scale of the 1986 disaster led to much study on how a recurrence could be prevented. Estimates of the rate of carbon dioxide entering the lake suggested that outgassings could occur every 10–30 years, though a recent study shows that release of water from the lake, caused by erosion of the natural barrier that keeps in the lake's water, could in turn reduce pressure on the lake's carbon dioxide and cause a gas escape much sooner.
Several researchers independently proposed the installation of degassing columns from rafts in the lake. These use a pump to initially lift water from the bottom of the lake, heavily saturated with CO2, until the loss of pressure begins releasing the gas from the diphasic fluid, at which point the process becomes self-powered. In 1992 at Monoun, and in 1995 at Nyos, a French team directed by Michel Halbwachs demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. In 2001, the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance funded a permanent installation at Nyos.
In 2011, two additional pipes were installed by Michel Halbwachs and his French-Cameroonian team to assure the complete degassing of Lake Nyos.
Following the disaster, scientists investigated other African lakes to see if a similar phenomenon could happen elsewhere. Lake Kivu, 2,000 times larger than Lake Nyos, was also found to be supersaturated, and geologists found evidence for outgassing events around the lake about every thousand years. The eruption of nearby Mount Nyiragongo in 2002 sent lava flowing into the lake, raising fears that a gas eruption could be triggered, but it was not, as the flow of lava stopped well before it got near the bottom layers of the lake, where the gas is maintained in solution by the water pressure.
Weakening dam.
In 2005, Isaac Njilah, a geologist at the University of Yaoundé, suggested that the natural dam of volcanic rock that keeps in the lake's waters could collapse in the near future. Erosion has worn the dam away, causing holes and pockets to develop in the dam's upper layer, and water already passes through the lower section. Meanwhile, landslides have reduced dam strength on the outside. Seismic activity caused by the lake's volcanic foundation could thus cause the lake wall to give way, resulting in up to 50 million m3 (1.8 billion ft3) of water flooding downhill into areas of the Northwest Province and the Nigerian states of Taraba and Benue.
The Cameroonian government, speaking through Gregory Tanyi-Leke of the Institute of Mining and Geological Research, acknowledges the weakening wall, but denies that it presents any immediate threat. A United Nations team led by Olaf Van Duin and Nisa Nurmohamed of the Netherlands' Ministry of Transport and Public Works inspected the dam over three days in September 2005, and confirmed that the natural lip had weakened. Van Duin believed that the dam would breach within the next 10 to 20 years.
One possible means of averting such a catastrophe would be to strengthen the lake wall, though this would take much time and money. Engineers could also introduce a channel to allow excess water to drain; if the water level were lowered by about , the pressure on the wall would be reduced significantly.
Return of population.
Despite the risks from carbon dioxide and collapse of the lake's retaining wall, the area is being resettled. Settlers cite the wish to return to ancestral lands (although some are newcomers) and the great fertility of the land as reasons for their return.
In popular culture.
"" [Nyos: The ceremony of innocence] (2016), a novel by Basileios Drolias focusing on the lake Nyos disaster.
"Stikvallei" [Choke Valley] (2013), a non-fiction account of the lake Nyos disaster by Frank Westerman.
References.
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Lake Monoun
Lake in West Province, Cameroon
Lake Monoun is a crater lake (maar) in West Province, Cameroon, that lies in the Oku Volcanic Field. On August 15, 1984, a limnic eruption occurred at the lake, which resulted in the release of a large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that killed 37 people. At first, the deaths remained unexplained, and causes such as terrorism were suspected. Further investigation and a similar event two years later at Lake Nyos led to the currently accepted explanation.
Disaster.
Several people reported hearing a loud noise on August 15, 1984, around 22:30. A gas cloud reportedly emanated from a crater in the eastern part of the lake. The resulting deaths of 37 residents in a low-lying area are believed to have occurred between 03:00 and dawn. The victims were said to have skin burns, which reports later clarified as "skin damage" such as discoloration. Survivors reported that the whitish, smoke-like cloud smelled bitter and acidic. Vegetation was flattened around the eastern part of the lake, probably by a large wave of up to height.
Although Lake Monoun is near the center of a volcanic field that includes at least 34 recent craters, the subsequent investigation found that the event was not caused by an eruption or sudden ejection of volcanic gas from the lake. Rather, emission of carbon dioxide in a limnic eruption is thought to be to blame. The cloud's smell and skin damage to victims were not fully explained. Some theories attribute the skin problems to a combination of preexisting conditions and routine postmortem effects like livor mortis, another medical interpretation says the body's metabolic rate was reduced inducing a severely restricted circulation in capillary vessels of the skin, resulting in necrosis, although there is no clear consensus.
Among the victims were some of the riders in a truck carrying twelve people. The truck's engine stopped working as it became starved of oxygen, and the people inside the truck got out and were killed. Two people sitting on top of the truck survived, because their elevated position allowed them to breathe – carbon dioxide is heavier than air (oxygen and nitrogen) which causes it to stay close to the ground.
Two years later, on 21 August 1986, a similar and much more deadly event occurred at Lake Nyos, about north-northwest, killing 1,746 people and more than 3,000 livestock. Along with Lake Nyos and Lake Kivu, Lake Monoun is one of three lakes in the world known to have high concentrations of gas dissolved deep below the surface and which have the right conditions for a limnic eruption.
Degassing.
In March and April 1992 preliminary test were conducted at Lake Monoun using the gas lift method as known in the petroleum industry. Initially a pump (or preferably a compressed gas injection) is needed to pull water from the bottom, but as carbon dioxide begins to come out of solution it creates buoyancy in the water in the pipes, allowing a self-sustaining process without the need for external energy supply.
Due to the very limited funds for the project and construction basically by hand, the solution was the use of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes. The material has a specific gravity of 0.96 kg/L which means an almost neutral buoyancy in water. The HDPE plastic is flexible, not brittle, and resistive to chemical and weathering alteration as proven material for natural gas distribution networks.
The pipe could be easily soldered electrically in the field from standard segments, and deployed with just the help of a few rubber boats plus floats. With some ballast, the pipe hangs freely from an anchored raft like a pendulum.
Unfortunately, the CO2-rich, oxygen-depleted water from the depth is a challenge for steel fittings: Corrosion occurred and formed siderite which removed iron from the steel.
In February 2003, a venting pipe was inserted into the lake, in an effort to prevent the disaster from recurring. In the initial degassing phase, an fountain developed from the water tapped at depth.(p9) However, a study found in 2005 that gas was not being removed from the lake quickly enough to ensure that the disaster could never happen again. It was recommended to lower the inlet of the existing pipe down to and the addition of a second pipe in order to release more carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the deep lake water is rich in iron(II) ions, which after a while transforms into limonite. As the lake is a fishing ground for local villagers, the effect of a higher iron intake rate in the upper water layer on fishlife needed consideration before scaling up the degassing rate.(p283)
In December 2013, the degassing pipe was upgraded with a small solar-power driven rotary pump, since it had lost its self-lift capability due to the bubbling effect in the riser as a significant amount of CO2 had been removed from the bottom layers. The new system is able to lift c. 100 m³ of bottom water to the surface per day. That degassing capability is unfortunately less than the natural inflow of CO2-rich water, therefore two more of these solar pumps are needed to avoid a long-term build up of higher and dangerous levels of CO2 in the stratified water levels.(p31)
References.
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Nazino tragedy
1933 mass murder and deportation in the Soviet Union
The Nazino tragedy () was the mass murder and mass deportation of around 6,700 prisoners to Nazino Island, located on the Ob River in West Siberian Krai, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union (now Tomsk Oblast, Russia), in May 1933. Sent to construct a "special settlement" and to cultivate the island, the deportees were abandoned with only scant supplies of flour for food, little to no tools, and virtually none of the clothing or shelter necessary to survive the harsh Siberian climate. Conditions on Nazino Island deteriorated quickly and resulted in widespread disease, violence, and cannibalism. Within 13 weeks, over 4,000 of the deportees had died or disappeared, and the majority of the survivors were in ill health. Those who attempted to leave were killed by armed guards.
The original report on the incident was made by Vasily A. Velichko, a Soviet propaganda worker, and passed to Joseph Stalin and to other members of the Politburo. The report remained classified until the human rights organisation Memorial conducted an investigation in 1988, five decades after the events. The tragedy was popularized in 2002, when reports from a September 1933 special commission by the Communist Party were published by Memorial.
Background.
In February 1933, Genrikh Yagoda, head of the OGPU (a secret police), and Matvei Berman, head of the GULAG labor camp system, proposed to Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, to resettle up to two million people to Siberia and the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic in "special settlements". The deportees, or "settlers", were to bring over a million hectares () of virgin land in the sparsely populated regions into production and become self-sufficient within two years. Yagoda and Berman's plan was based on the experience of deporting two million kulaks and other agricultural workers to the same areas that had occurred in the previous three years as part of the dekulakization policy. However, unlike the previous plan, resources available to support the new plan were severely limited by an ongoing famine in the Soviet Union. Despite this, the new plan was approved by the Council of People's Commissars on 11 March 1933. Shortly after the plan's approval, the number of prospective deportees was reduced to one million.
Deportees.
The original plan targeted several types of kulaks, peasants, people living in the agricultural areas of Soviet Union's western territories such as the Ukrainian SSR and the Lower Volga, North Caucasus and Black Earth regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Instead, many of the deportees were people from Moscow, Leningrad and other cities who had been unable to obtain internal passports. The Soviet passportization campaign began with a decision by the Politburo on 27 December 1932 to issue internal passports to all residents of major cities, with one of their objectives being to "cleanse Moscow, Leningrad and the other great urban centers of the USSR of superfluous elements not connected with production or administrative work, as well as kulaks, criminals, and other antisocial and socially dangerous elements."
Deportees were primarily "lumpenproletariat and socially harmful elements", meaning former merchants and traders, peasants who had fled the ongoing famine in the countryside, petty criminals or anybody who did not fit into the idealized worker class structure. Their backgrounds meant they were not issued passports, and they could be arrested and deported from the cities after a summary administrative procedure. Most of the arrestees were deported within two days. Between March and July 1933, 85,937 people living in Moscow were arrested and deported because they lacked passports, while 4,776 people living in Leningrad were also deported. Those arrested in connection with the cleansing of Moscow prior to 1 May 1933 (International Workers' Day) were assigned to a transit camp in the city of Tomsk.
Transportation.
According to the plan proposed by Yagoda and Berman, the deportees would pass through transit camps at Tomsk, Omsk and Achinsk. The largest camp was at Tomsk that held 15,000 deportees. Over 25,000 deportees arrived in April even though the camp was not scheduled to be completed until 1 May. River transport to the final labor camps was closed until the start of May until ice on the Ob and Tom Rivers cleared. Most of the first arrivals were people without any papers on hand, alleged kulaks, other agricultural workers and people from southern Russian cities. The arrival of so many deportees panicked Tomsk authorities, who viewed them as "starving and contagious".
A report by Vassily Arsenievich Velichko, the local Communist Party head in Narymsky District of the West Siberian Krai, gave twenty-two examples of people who had been deported:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />It is hard to tell how many, even who (died), because declared documents had been confiscated at the time of arrest, or by police organs at the detention centers, or on the train by criminals who used them to smoke. However, some of them brought their documents with them: party and party candidate cards, Komsomol cards, passports, certificates from the factories, factory passes, etc. ...
A rail convoy holding "underclass" deportees left Moscow on 30 April, and a similar convoy left Leningrad on 29 April, with both arriving on 10 May. The daily food ration during the trip was of bread per person. Criminal groups among the deportees beat the non-criminals and stole their food and clothing. The authorities in Tomsk were unfamiliar with urban deportees and expected trouble from them, so decided to send them to the most isolated work sites. Two nights after their arrival in Tomsk, a disturbance broke out as they demanded drinking water, but the riot was put down by mounted troops.
Many of the urban deportees were later sent to Nazino Island (), a swampy river island on the Ob River located north of Tomsk, in a particularly empty part of Western Siberia inhabited by only a small number of indigenous Ostyak people. Four river barges, which were designed to haul timber, were filled with about 5,000 deportees on 14 May. About a third of the deportees were criminals who had been sent in order to "decongest the prisons". About half were so-called lumpenproletarians from Moscow and Leningrad. The authorities who were to be in charge of the labor camps were first informed that they would be sent on 5 May. These authorities had never worked with urban deportees and had no resources or supplies to support them. The deportees were kept below decks on the barges and apparently fed a daily ration of of bread per person. Twenty tons of flour – about per person – were also transported, but the barges contained no other food, cooking utensils or tools. All supervisory personnel, two commanders and fifty guards were newly recruited and had no shoes or uniforms.
Nazino Island.
During the afternoon of 18 May, the barges unloaded their passengers on Nazino Island, an island about long and wide. There was no roster of the disembarking deportees, but on arrival 322 women and 4,556 men were counted, plus 27 bodies of those who died during the trip from Tomsk. Over a third of the deportees were too weak to stand on arrival. About 1,200 additional deportees arrived on 27 May. A fight broke out and guards fired on the deportees as the twenty tons of flour were deposited on the island and distribution began. The flour was moved to the shore opposite the island and distribution was tried again the next morning, with another fight and more firing resulting. Afterward, all flour was distributed via "brigadiers" who collected flour for their brigade of about 150 people. The brigadiers were often criminals who abused their privileges and ate everything themselves. Initially there were no ovens to bake bread on, so the deportees ate the flour mixed with river water, which led to dysentery. Some deportees made primitive rafts to try to escape, but most of the rafts collapsed and hundreds of corpses washed up on the shore below the island. Guards hunted and killed other escapees as if they were hunting animals for sport. Because of the lack of any transportation to the rest of the country except upstream to Tomsk, and the harshness of life in the taiga, any other escapees who made it across the river and evaded the guards were ultimately presumed dead. Shortly after the deportees had already arrived on Nazino Island, Yagoda and Berman plans were rejected by Stalin.
Order on Nazino Island quickly broke down: the majority of the population, being city dwellers, knew nothing about basic agricultural practices such as clearing and cultivation that would make the island properly habitable. The sparsity of resources led to the formation of gangs who began to terrorize and dominate weaker settlers. People were frequently murdered in fights over food or money, and the bodies of those in possession of anything of value such as gold tooth fillings and crowns were often looted. The latter were used for exchange for food and cigarettes by gang members. Meanwhile, the guards established their own reign of terror, extorting settlers and executing people for minor offences despite being apathetic towards the gangs. Even the doctors sent to monitor the island's population, who were supposed to have protection, began to fear for their lives. The lack of proper food and the rising death toll by late May led to cannibalism becoming widespread, to the point that settlers eventually began murdering individuals for the sole purpose of consuming them. On 21 May, the three health officers counted seventy new deaths, with signs of cannibalism observed in five cases. Over the next month, guards arrested about fifty people for cannibalism.
Aftermath.
The situation on Nazino Island was finally ended in early June, when Soviet authorities dissolved the settlement and the surviving 2,856 deportees were transferred to smaller settlements upstream on the Nazina River, leaving 157 deportees who could not be moved from the island for health reasons. Despite the settlement being dissolved, several hundred more of the deportees died during the transfer. People who survived the transfer found themselves with few tools, little food and facing an outbreak of typhus. Most deportees refused to work in the new settlements due to their previous treatment. In early July, new settlements were constructed using non-deportee labor, but only 250 Nazino settlers were transferred to these. Instead, 4,200 new deportees who arrived from Tomsk were housed in these settlements. In a period of thirteen weeks, of the roughly 6,000 deportee settlers intended for Nazino Island, between 1,500 and 2,000 had died due to starvation, exposure, disease, murder or accidental death. Another 2,000 settlers had disappeared and their whereabouts were untraceable, so they were presumed dead. The death tolls include people who either died or disappeared during their transportation to or from the island.
The report on the situation at Nazino Island, which had been sent to Stalin by Velichko, was distributed by Lazar Kaganovich to members of the Politburo and was preserved in an archive in Novosibirsk. It stated that 6,114 "outdated elements" arrived on the island in May 1933, and at least 27 people died during the river transport. There was no shelter on the island; it snowed the first night, and no food was distributed for four days. On the first day 295 people were buried. Velichko's report claimed only 2,200 people survived out of about 6,700 (6100 and additional 500–600 people) deportees that he calculated had arrived from Tomsk. The report resulted in a commission by the Communist Party to study the affair. In October, the commission estimated that of the roughly 2,000 survivors from Nazino Island, half were ill and bedridden and that only about 200 to 300 were physically capable of working. Local officials and guards at the island attempted to dispute Velichko's report but were instead reprimanded, receiving prison sentences ranging between twelve months to three years.
The events that occurred at Nazino Island highlighted issues with Soviet colonization projects, and the Soviet leadership began to doubt their quality and efficiency. In 1933 alone, there were 367,457 known untraceable "special resettlers", of which 151,601 were dismissed and 215,856 simply disappeared from their settlements. The Nazino incident directly led to the end of large-scale settlement plans in the Soviet Union, and to the end of using deportees from "urban déclassé elements" and criminal backgrounds for future settlement plans.
Rediscovery.
After the initial investigations in late 1933, the events at Nazino Island were forgotten as they were suppressed from being made public; only a small number of survivors, government officials and eyewitnesses knew of their occurrence. In 1988, at the time of the "glasnost" policy in the Soviet Union, details of the affair first became available to the general public through the efforts of the human rights group Memorial. In 1989, an eyewitness reported to Memorial:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />They were trying to escape. They asked us, "Where's the railway?" We'd never seen a railway. They asked, "Where's Moscow? Leningrad?" They were asking the wrong people: we'd never heard of those places. We're Ostyaks. People were running away starving. They were given a handful of flour. They mixed it with water and drank it and then they immediately got diarrhea. The things we saw! People were dying everywhere; they were killing each other ... On the island there was a guard named Kostia Venikov, a young fellow. He fell in love with a girl who had been sent there and was courting her. He protected her. One day he had to be away for a while, and he told one of his comrades, "Take care of her," but with all the people there the comrade couldn't do much really... People caught the girl, tied her to a poplar tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything, everything ... They were hungry, they had to eat. When Kostia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood.
French historian Nicolas Werth, who earlier co-authored "The Black Book of Communism", published the book "Cannibal Island" about the affair in 2006. It was translated into English in 2007. In 2009 a documentary ("Cannibal Island") was made, based on the book. Nazino Island, now located in Alexandrovsky District of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, is also called "Death Island" (, ) or "Cannibal Island" due to the events there.
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2014 Lake Albert boat disaster
Capsizing of a boat on Lake Albert in 2014
On March 22, 2014, a boat traveling on Africa's Lake Albert capsized. According to local police, 45 survivors were rescued. Officially, 251 people died in the accident.
Accident.
Early on March 22, 2014, two boats carrying people from the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement left the Ugandan shore of Lake Albert en route to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). On the way, one of the boats capsized. Its passengers had been returning home after United Nations and Congolese forces won major victories over the Allied Democratic Forces and M23 rebel groups in recent months. There was no evidence that the boat's passengers had left Uganda due to conditions at the refugee camp.
Reports indicated that the accident occurred due to overcrowding, a common cause of boating casualties in the region due to lax enforcement of safety rules. The boat's listed capacity was 80, but approximately 300 people were on board at the time of the accident. The lack of life vests and inability of most passengers to swim also contributed to the high death toll. Additionally, the boat was in poor condition mechanically.
Death toll and response.
Initial efforts led to the rescue of 45 survivors and recovery of 19 bodies on March 22. Survivors were taken to the Bundibugyo District of Uganda, where they received care from the Ugandan government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. By March 24, 109 bodies were recovered. Of those, 88 were accepted for burial in DRC. The remainder were rejected due to cultural concerns over burying people more than 72 hours after death and were buried at the Bundibugyo hospital cemetery. On March 27, the official death toll was revised to 251. Most of the dead were children.
The boat's skipper recalled counting 96 adults on board, but he did not count the children. Police said they believed nearly all passengers had been accounted for.
In a statement, the United Nations said it was "shocked and saddened" by the tragedy. Three days of national mourning were declared in DRC. The government also helped arrange funerals and offered support for the dead. On April 7, DRC announced plans to repatriate about 21,000 refugees living in Uganda. DRC envoy to Uganda Jean Okoto Lolakombe remarked "It is sad that we lost our people, but we have learnt a lesson from the incident." There are 175,000 registered Congolese refugees living in Uganda as of March 2014.
References.
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Noah's Wish
Noah's Wish was a charity that rescues and takes care of animals endangered by natural disasters.
The mission of Noah's Wish is to save animals during disasters with their rescue and recovery services and to mitigate the impact of disasters on animals through educational outreach programs.
The organization travels to areas affected by disaster and evacuate pets and livestock. They shelter, feed and provide medical care for the animals until they can be returned to their owners or housed more permanently. Based in El Dorado Hills, California, the organization has helped relief efforts internationally, such as after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit Sri Lanka in December 2004 and after the August 2005 flooding in Romania. Within North America, they have assisted in the wake of a number of forest fires and hurricanes since being founded in 2002. Outside of relief work, the organization trains volunteers to deal effectively and practically in disaster situations.
Noah's Wish set up a rescue operation in Slidell, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in September 2005. As of November 25, 2005 they cared for 1,564 animals during this situation, and reunited more than 1,257 lost pets with their owners.
Legal troubles.
After Hurricane Katrina, Noah's Wish settled with the state of California, forfeiting $4 million of $8 million it had collected. Noah's Wish was one of a few, but egregious, animal charity scams. The forfeiture was used to build an animal rescue shelter in Slidell, Louisiana.
References.
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Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916
Shark attacks in the US
The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one critically injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
Personal and national reaction to the fatalities involved a wave of panic that led to shark hunts aimed at eradicating the population of "man-eating" sharks and protecting the economies of New Jersey's seaside communities. Resort towns enclosed their public beaches with steel nets to protect swimmers. Scientific knowledge about sharks before 1916 was based on conjecture and speculation. The attacks forced ichthyologists to reassess common beliefs about the abilities of sharks and the nature of shark attacks.
The Jersey Shore attacks immediately entered into American popular culture, where sharks became caricatures in editorial cartoons representing danger. The attacks became the subject of documentaries for the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, and Discovery Channel, which aired "12 Days of Terror" (2004) and the Shark Week episode "Blood in the Water" (2009).
Incidents and victims.
Between July 1 and 12, 1916, five people were attacked along the coast of New Jersey by sharks; only one of the victims survived. The first major attack occurred on Saturday, July 1 at Beach Haven, a resort town established on Long Beach Island off the southern coast of New Jersey. Charles Epting Vansant, 23, of Philadelphia, was on vacation at the Engleside Hotel with his family. Before dinner, Vansant decided to take a quick swim in the Atlantic with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that was playing on the beach. Shortly after entering the water, Vansant began shouting. Bathers believed he was calling to the dog, but a shark was actually biting Vansant's legs. He was rescued by lifeguard Alexander Ott and bystander Sheridan Taylor, who claimed the shark followed him to shore as they pulled the bleeding Vansant from the water. Vansant's left thigh was stripped of its flesh; he bled to death on the manager's desk of the Engleside Hotel at 6:45 PM.
Despite the Vansant attack, beaches along the Jersey Shore remained open. Sightings of large sharks swimming off the coast of New Jersey were reported by sea captains entering the ports of Newark and New York City but were dismissed. The second major attack occurred on Thursday, July 6, 1916, at the resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey, north of Beach Haven. The victim was Charles Bruder, 27, a Swiss bell captain at the Essex & Sussex Hotel. Bruder was attacked while swimming from shore. A shark bit his abdomen and severed his legs; Bruder's blood turned the water red. After hearing screams, a woman notified two lifeguards that a canoe with a red hull had capsized and was floating at the water's surface. Lifeguards Chris Anderson and George White rowed to Bruder in a lifeboat and realized he had been bitten by a shark. They pulled him from the water, but he bled to death on the way to shore. According to "The New York Times", "women [were] panic-stricken [and fainted] as [Bruder's] mutilated body ... [was] brought ashore." Guests and workers at the Essex & Sussex and neighboring hotels raised money for Bruder's mother in Switzerland.
The next three attacks took place in Matawan Creek near the town of Keyport on Wednesday, July 12. Located north of Spring Lake and inland of Raritan Bay, Matawan resembled a Midwestern town rather than an Atlantic beach resort. Matawan's location made it an unlikely site for interactions between sharks and humans. When Thomas Cottrell, a sea captain and Matawan resident, spotted an shark in the creek, the town dismissed him. Around 2:00 PM a group of local boys, including young Lester Stillwell, 11, were playing in the creek together. One of the boys had brought along his pet dog, which was swimming with them as well. At an area called "Wyckoff Dock" they saw what appeared to be an "old, black weather-beaten board or a weathered log." A dorsal fin appeared in the water and the boys realized it was a shark. Before Stillwell could climb from the creek, the shark pulled him underwater.
The boys ran to town for help, and several men, including local businessman Watson Stanley Fisher, 24, came to investigate. Fisher and others dove into the creek to find Stillwell, thinking he had suffered a seizure. After locating the boy's body and attempting to return to shore, Fisher was also bitten by the shark in front of the townspeople, losing Stillwell in the process. His right thigh was severely injured and he bled to death at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch at 5:30 PM. Stillwell's body was recovered upstream from the Wyckoff dock on July 14.
The fifth and final victim, Joseph Dunn, 14, of New York City was attacked a half-mile (~805 m) from the Wyckoff dock nearly 30 minutes after the fatal attacks on Stillwell and Fisher. The shark bit his left leg, stripping it of flesh, but Dunn was rescued by his brother and friend after a vicious tug-of-war battle with the shark. Dunn told the press that he felt his leg going down the shark's throat, "I believe it would have swallowed me." Dunn was taken to Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick; he recovered from the bite and was released on September 15, 1916.
Reaction.
As the national media descended on Beach Haven, Spring Lake, and Matawan, the Jersey Shore attacks started a shark panic. According to Capuzzo, this panic was "unrivaled in American history", "sweeping along the coasts of New York and New Jersey and spreading by telephone and wireless, letter and postcard."
At first, after the Beach Haven incident, scientists and the press only reluctantly blamed the death of Charles Vansant on a shark. "The New York Times" reported that Vansant "was badly bitten in the surf ... by a fish, presumably a shark." Still, State Fish Commissioner of Pennsylvania and former director of the Philadelphia Aquarium James M. Meehan asserted in the "Philadelphia Public Ledger" that the shark was preying on the dog and had bitten Vansant by mistake. He specifically de-emphasized the threat sharks posed to humans:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />Despite the death of Charles Vansant and the report [of] two sharks having been caught in that vicinity recently, I do not believe there is any reason why people should hesitate to go in swimming at the beaches for fear of man-eaters. The information in regard to the sharks is indefinite and I hardly believe that Vansant was bitten by a man-eater. Vansant was in the surf playing with a dog and it may be that a small shark had drifted in at high water, and was marooned by the tide. Being unable to move quickly and without food, he had come in to bite the dog and snapped at the man in passing.
The media's response to the second attack was more sensational. Major American newspapers such as the "Boston Herald", "Chicago Sun-Times", "The Philadelphia Inquirer", "The Washington Post", and "San Francisco Chronicle" placed the story on the front page. "The New York Times"' headline read, "Shark Kills Bather Off Jersey Beach". The growing panic cost New Jersey resort owners an estimated $250,000 ($ in 2024) in lost tourism, and sun bathing declined by 75 percent in some areas.
A press conference was convened on July 8, 1916, at the American Museum of Natural History, with scientists Frederic Augustus Lucas, John Treadwell Nichols, and Robert Cushman Murphy as panelists. To calm the growing panic, the three men stressed that a third run-in with a shark was unlikely, although they were admittedly surprised that sharks bit anyone at all. Nevertheless, Nichols—the only ichthyologist in the trio—warned swimmers to stay close to shore and to take advantage of the netted bathing areas installed at public beaches after the first attack.
Shark sightings increased along the Mid-Atlantic Coast following the attacks. On July 8, armed motorboats patrolling the beach at Spring Creek chased an animal they thought to be a shark, and Asbury Park's Asbury Avenue Beach was closed after lifeguard Benjamin Everingham claimed to have beaten away a shark with an oar. Sharks were spotted near Bayonne, New Jersey; Rocky Point, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama, and a columnist from "Field & Stream" captured a sandbar shark in the surf at Beach Haven. Actress Gertrude Hoffmann was swimming at the Coney Island beach shortly after the Matawan fatalities when she claimed to have encountered a shark. "The New York Times" noted that Hoffman "had the presence of mind to remember that she had read in the "Times" that a bather can scare away a shark by splashing, and she beat up the water furiously." Hoffman was certain she was going to be devoured by the "Jersey man-eater", but later admitted she was "not sure ... whether she had her trouble for nothing or had barely escaped death."
Local New Jersey governments tried to protect bathers and the economy from man-eating sharks. The Fourth Avenue Beach at Asbury Park was enclosed with a steel-wire-mesh fence and patrolled by armed motorboats; it remained the only beach open following the Everingham incident. After the attacks on Stilwell, Fisher, and Dunn, residents of Matawan lined Matawan Creek with nets and detonated dynamite in an attempt to catch and kill the shark. Matawan mayor Arris B. Henderson ordered the "Matawan Journal" to print wanted posters offering a $100 reward ($ in 2024 dollars) to anyone who killed a shark in the creek. Despite these efforts, no sharks were captured or killed in Matawan Creek.
Resort communities along the Jersey Shore petitioned the federal government to aid local efforts to protect beaches and hunt sharks. The House of Representatives appropriated $5,000 ($ in 2024 dollars) for eradicating the New Jersey shark threat, and President Woodrow Wilson scheduled a meeting with his Cabinet to discuss the fatal attacks. Treasury secretary William Gibbs McAdoo suggested that the Coast Guard be mobilized to patrol the Jersey Shore and protect sun bathers. Shark hunts ensued across the coasts of New Jersey and New York. As the "Atlanta Constitution" reported on July 14, "Armed shark hunters in motor boats patrolled the New York and New Jersey coasts today while others lined the beaches in a concerted effort to exterminate the man-eaters ..." New Jersey governor James Fairman Fielder and local municipalities offered bounties to individuals hunting sharks. Hundreds of sharks were captured on the East Coast due to the attacks. The East Coast shark hunt has been described as "the largest scale animal hunt in history."
Identifying the "Jersey man-eater".
After the second incident, scientists and the public began presenting theories to explain which species of shark was responsible for the Jersey Shore attacks or whether multiple sharks were involved.
Lucas and Nichols proposed that a northward-swimming rogue shark was responsible. They believed it would eventually arrive along New York's coast: "Unless the shark came through the Harbor and went through the north through Hell Gate and Long Island Sound, it was presumed it would swim along the South Shore of Long Island and the first deep water inlet it reaches will be the Jamaica Bay."
Witnesses of the Beach Haven fatality estimated that the shark was long. A sea captain who saw the event believed it was a Spanish shark driven from the Caribbean Sea decades earlier by bombings during the Spanish–American War. Several fishermen claimed to have caught the "Jersey man-eater" in the days following the attacks. A blue shark was captured on July 14 near Long Branch, and four days later the same Thomas Cottrell who had seen the shark in Matawan Creek claimed to have captured a sandbar shark with a gillnet near the mouth of the creek.
On July 14, Harlem taxidermist and Barnum and Bailey lion tamer Michael Schleisser caught a , shark while fishing in Raritan Bay, only a few miles from the mouth of Matawan Creek. The shark nearly sank the boat before Schleisser killed it with a broken oar. When he opened the shark's belly, he removed a "suspicious fleshy material and bones" that took up "about two-thirds of a milk crate" and "together weighed fifteen pounds." Scientists identified the shark as a young great white and the ingested remains as human. Schleisser mounted the shark and placed it on display in the window of a Manhattan shop on Broadway, but it was later lost. The only surviving photograph appeared in the "Bronx Home News".
No further attacks were reported along the Jersey Shore in 1916 after the capture of Schleisser's great white shark. Murphy and Lucas declared the great white to be the "Jersey man-eater".
Skeptical individuals offered alternative hypotheses, including opinions suggesting a non-shark perpetrator and even the influence of ongoing events associated with World War I.
In a letter to "The New York Times", a Barrett P. Smith of Sound Beach, New York, over away on the far side of Long Island, wrote:
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Another letter to "The New York Times" blamed the shark infestation on the maneuvers of German U-boats near America's East Coast. The anonymous writer claimed, "These sharks may have devoured human bodies in the waters of the German war zone and followed liners to this coast, or even followed the "Deutschland" herself, expecting the usual toll of drowning men, women, and children." The writer concluded, "This would account for their boldness and their craving for human flesh."
Over a century later, there is no consensus among researchers over Murphy and Lucas' investigation and findings. Richard G. Fernicola published two studies of the event, and notes that "there are many theories behind the New Jersey attacks," and all are inconclusive. Researchers such as Thomas Helm, Harold W. McCormick, Thomas B. Allen, William Young, Jean Campbell Butler, and Michael Capuzzo generally agree with Murphy and Lucas.
However, the National Geographic Society reported in 2002 that "some experts are suggesting that the great white may not in fact be responsible for many of the attacks pinned on the species. These people say the real culprit behind many of the reported incidents—including the famous 1916 shark attacks in New Jersey that may have served as inspiration for "Jaws"—may be the lesser known bull shark."
Biologists George A. Llano and Richard Ellis suggest that a bull shark could have been responsible for the fatal Jersey Shore attacks. Bull sharks swim from the ocean into freshwater rivers and streams and have attacked people around the world. In his book "Sharks: Attacks on Man" (1975), Llano writes,
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />One of the most surprising aspects of the Matawan Creek attacks was the distance from the open sea. Elsewhere in the book are accounts of well-documented shark-human interactions at Ahwaz, Iran, which is upriver from the sea. It may also be of interest to note that sharks live in Lake Nicaragua, a fresh-water body, and in 1944 there was a bounty offered for dead freshwater sharks, as they had "killed and severely injured lake bathers recently."
Ellis points out that the great white "is an oceanic species, and Schleisser's shark was caught in the ocean. To find it swimming in a tidal creek is, to say the least, unusual, and may even be impossible. The bull shark, however, is infamous for its freshwater meanderings, as well as for its pugnacious and aggressive nature." He admits that "the bull shark is not a common species in New Jersey waters, but it does occur more frequently than the white."
In an interview with Michael Capuzzo, ichthyologist George H. Burgess surmises, "The species involved has always been doubtful and likely will continue to generate spirited debate." Burgess, however, does not discount the great white:
The bull draws a lot of votes because the location, Matawan Creek, suggests brackish or fresh waters, a habitat that bulls frequent and whites avoid. However, our examination of the site reveals that the size of the "creek," its depth, and salinity regime were closer to a marine embayment and that a smallish white clearly could have wandered into the area. Since an appropriate sized white shark with human remains in its stomach was captured nearby shortly after the attacks (and no further incidents occurred), it seems likely that this was the shark involved in at least the Matawan fatalities. The temporal and geographical sequence of the incidents also suggests that earlier attacks may have involved the same shark.
The casualties of the 1916 attacks are listed in the International Shark Attack File—of which Burgess is director—as victims of a great white.
The increased presence of humans in the water was a factor in the attacks: "As the worldwide human population continues to rise year after year, so does ... interest in aquatic recreation. The number of shark attacks in any given year or region is highly influenced by the number of people entering the water." However, the likelihood that one shark was involved is contested. Scientists such as Victor M. Coppleson and Jean Butler, relying on evidence presented by Lucas and Murphy in 1916, assert that a single shark was responsible. On the other hand, Richard Fernicola notes that 1916 was a "shark year", as fishermen and captains were reporting hundreds of sharks swimming in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Ellis remarks that "to try to make the facts as we know them conform to the 'rogue shark' theory is stretching sensationalism and credibility beyond reasonable limits." He admits, "The evidence is long gone, and we will never really know if it was one shark or several, one species or another, that was responsible."
In 2011, further study was conducted in the Smithsonian Channel's "The Real Story: Jaws". The documentary takes a closer look at the series of events from different perspectives. It was demonstrated in the Matawan Creek attacks, for example, that the full moon of the lunar cycle, which would have coincided with the attacks, would have raised the salinity in the water by more than double just a few hours before high tide. This would support the theory that a great white could have been responsible. Other evidence such as Joseph Dunn's injury suggested that the type of bite was more likely made by a bull shark as opposed to a great white, leading some to believe more than one shark was likely involved in the five incidents.
Revising science.
Before 1916, American scholars doubted that sharks would fatally wound a living person in the temperate waters of the northeastern United States without provocation. One skeptical scientist wrote, "There is a great difference between being attacked by a shark and being bitten by one." He believed that sharks tangled in fishing nets or feeding on carrion might accidentally bite a nearby human. In 1891, millionaire banker and adventurer Hermann Oelrichs offered a $500 reward in the "New York Sun" "for an authenticated case of a man having been attacked by a shark in [the] temperate waters" north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. He wanted proof that "in temperate waters even one man, woman, or child, while alive, was ever attacked by a shark." The reward went unclaimed and scientists remained convinced that the upper eastern coast of the United States was inhabited by harmless sharks.
Academics were skeptical that a shark could produce fatal wounds on human victims. Ichthyologist Henry Weed Fowler and curator Henry Skinner of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia asserted that a shark's jaws did not have the power to sever a human leg in a single bite. Frederic Lucas, director of the American Museum of Natural History, questioned whether a shark even as large as 30 feet (9 m) could snap a human bone. He told "The Philadelphia Inquirer" in early 1916 that "it is beyond the power even of the largest Carcharodon to sever the leg of an adult man." Lucas summed up his argument by pointing to Oelrichs's unclaimed reward and that the chances of being bitten by a shark were "infinitely less than that of being struck by lightning and that there is practically no danger of an attack from a shark about our coasts."
The Jersey Shore attacks prompted scientists in the United States to revise their assumptions that sharks were timid and powerless. In July 1916, ichthyologist and editor for the National Geographic Society Hugh McCormick Smith published an article in the "Newark Star-Eagle" describing some shark species as "harmless as doves and others the incarnation of ferocity." He continued, "One of the most prodigious, and perhaps the most formidable of sharks is the man-eater, "Carcharodon carcharias" [great white]. It roams through all temperate and tropical seas, and everywhere is an object of dread. Its maximum length is forty feet and its teeth are three inches (76 mm) long."
By the end of July 1916, John Nichols and Robert Murphy were taking the great white more seriously. In "Scientific American", Murphy wrote that the "white shark is perhaps the rarest of all noteworthy sharks ... their habits are little known, but they are said to feed to some extent on big sea turtles ... Judging from its physical make-up, it would not hesitate to attack a man in open water." He concluded that "because it is evident that even a relatively small white shark, weighing two or three hundred pounds, might readily snap the largest human bones by a jerk of its body, after it has bitten through the flesh."
Robert Murphy and John Nichols wrote in October 1916:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />There is something peculiarly sinister in the shark's make-up. The sight of his dark, lean [dorsal] fin lazily cutting zig-zags in the surface of some quiet, sparkling summer sea, and then slipping out of sight not to appear again, suggests an evil spirit. His leering, chinless face, his great mouth with its rows of knife-like teeth, which he knows too well to use on the fisherman's gear; the relentless fury with which, when his last hour has come, he thrashes on deck and snaps at his enemies; his toughness, his brutal, nerveless vitality and insensibility to physical injury, fail to elicit the admiration one feels for the dashing, brilliant, destructive, gastronomic bluefish, tunny, or salmon.
After the Matawan attacks, Frederic Lucas admitted on the front page of "The New York Times" that he had underestimated sharks. The paper reported that "the foremost authority on sharks in this country has doubted that any shark ever attacked a human being, and has published his doubts, but the recent cases have changed his view." Nichols later documented the occurrence of the great white shark in his biological survey "Fishes of the Vicinity of New York City" (1918), ""Carcharodon carcharias" (Linn.) White Shark. "Man-eater." Accidental in summer. June to July 14, 1916."
Cultural impact.
After the first fatality, newspaper cartoonists began using sharks as caricatures for political figures, German U-boats, Victorian morality and fashion, polio, and the deadly heat wave threatening the Northeast at the time. Fernicola notes, "Since 1916 was among the years that Americans were trying to break away from the rigidity and conservatism of the Victorian period, one comic depicted a risqué polka-dot bathing suit and advertised it as the secret weapon to keep sharks away from our swimmers." Another cartoon depicted "an exasperated individual at the end of a dock that displays a 'Danger: No Swimming' sign and mentions the three most emphasized 'danger' topics of the day: 'Infantile Paralysis (polio), Epidemic Heat Wave, and Sharks in the Ocean'." The cartoon is entitled "What's a Family Man to Do?" With World War I ongoing in 1916 and America's growing distrust of Germany, cartoonists depicted U-boats with the mouth and fins of a shark assaulting Uncle Sam while he wades in the water.
In 1974, writer Peter Benchley published "Jaws", a novel about a rogue great white shark that terrorizes the fictional Long Island coastal community of Amity. Chief of police Martin Brody, biologist Matt Hooper, and fisherman Quint hunt the shark after it kills four people. The novel was adapted as the film "Jaws" by Steven Spielberg in 1975. Spielberg's film references the events of 1916: Brody (Roy Scheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) urge Amity's Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches on the Fourth of July after the deaths of two swimmers and a fisherman. Hooper explains to the mayor, "Look, the situation is that apparently a great white shark has staked a claim in the waters off Amity Island. And he's going to continue to feed here as long as there is food in the water." Brody adds, "And there's no limit to what he's gonna do! I mean we've already had three incidents, two people killed inside of a week. And it's gonna happen again, it happened before! The Jersey beach! ... 1916! Five people chewed up on the surf!" Richard Ellis, Richard Fernicola, and Michael Capuzzo all suggest that the 1916 Jersey Shore attacks, Coppleson's rogue shark theory, and the exploits of New York fisherman Frank Mundus inspired Benchley.
The 1916 fatal attacks are the subject of three studies: Richard G. Fernicola's "In Search of the "Jersey Man-Eater"" (1987) and "Twelve Days of Terror" (2001), and Michael Capuzzo's "Close to Shore" (2001). Capuzzo offers an in-depth dramatization of the incident, and Fernicola examines the scientific, medical, and social aspects of the attacks. Fernicola's research is the basis of an episode of the History Channel's documentary series "In Search of History" titled "Shark Attack 1916" (2001) and the Discovery Channel's docudrama "12 Days of Terror" (2004). Fernicola also wrote and directed a 90-minute documentary called "Tracking the Jersey Man-Eater". It was produced by the George Marine Library in 1991; however, it was never widely released.
The attacks at Matawan are the subject of the National Geographic Channel documentary "Attacks of the Mystery Shark" (2002), which examines the possibility that a bull shark was responsible for killing Stanley Fisher and Lester Stilwell; Discovery Channel's "Blood in the Water" (2009); "Shore Thing" (2009) (directed by Lovari and James Hill); and the Smithsonian Channel's "The Real Story: Jaws" (2011).
References.
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Yanga derailment
The Yanga derailment occurred on 21 June 2010 when a train traveling between Brazzaville and Pointe Noire in the Republic of the Congo was derailed and plunged into a ravine. At least 60 people were initially reported to have been killed and hundreds disappeared with the death toll expected to rise further. The death toll had risen to 76 people and the injury toll had risen to 745 by 23 June 2010.
The derailment compares with a similar incident which killed 100 people and injured 300 others in the Republic of the Congo's deadliest such incident in the country's history back in September 1991. A chronological list of rail accidents since 2002 provided by "The Daily Telegraph" suggests this is the deadliest rail disaster since 28 April 2008 when at least 70 people were killed in China.
Accident.
On 21 June 2010, a train operated by Chemin de Fer Congo-Océan (CFCO) derailed at Yanga, between Bilingi and Tchitondi, some from Pointe Noire. Four carriages were derailed. At least 51 people were reported killed at the time, with dozens more injured.
The train was en route from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville at the time. Four wagons fell down into a ravine. Casualties and corpses were carried to the relevant location. 16 people were left in a critical state of physical danger. Photographs of the wounded show multiple limb injuries and wheelchair-using patients. Family members gathered at Pointe Noire and Dolisie railway stations to seek news of their loved ones. The material damage was said to be "severe".
By 23 June 2010, the death toll had risen to 76 people and the injury toll had risen to 745.
Cause.
No cause for the crash was immediately established, although excessive speed was blamed by the government. The train was rounding a bend at the time.
Response.
The military and people from the Red Cross dashed to the area to offer their assistance to the stricken passengers. President Denis Sassou Nguesso met with senior members of his administration after the incident.
Three days of national mourning were declared by the Republic of the Congo's government.
Funerals which had resulted from the incident were paid for by the government, according to an official statement, and mourning commenced in earnest the following Saturday.
References.
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External links.

Bronx Zoo
Metropolitan zoo in the Bronx, New York
The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and is the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States by area, comprising of park