Volcano Survivors Begin Do-It-Yourself Recovery

With aid from the international community slow to arrive in the wake of a devastating volcanic eruption, residents set about to rebuild their city Tuesday, constructing roads, restoring electricity and helping one another restart their lives.

“Nyiragongo can cover our homes with fire, but it cannot kill our spirit,” said Salome Kabasele, a 22-year-old Goman. “After all, we’re Congolese.”

Kabasele was referring to the nearby volcano that erupted last week, covering nearly half of this lakeside city with burning lava, killing an undetermined number of people and displacing hundreds of thousands of others.

Throughout the day Tuesday, Kabasele hawked loaves of kwanga, a bread made from cassava, to thousands of people who had crossed a sea of hot lava rocks to reach their homes. By late afternoon, she had sold only one of her 24 loaves.

“Many people don’t have money,” she said, “so I’ll have to give it to my neighbors tonight. Most of them have not eaten in days, so maybe my bad day is their good fortune.”

Five days after the disaster, the United Nations World Food Program began distributing limited amounts of food outside Goma. Today, the relief workers plan to distribute food rations, including high-protein biscuits, inside the city.

U.N. officials acknowledged Tuesday that they were slow to respond to the disaster because they didn’t know if Goma was safe after Thursday’s eruption.

Officials said distributing food in the city would send a message to Gomans that it is safe to return to an area that is being rocked dozens of times a day by earthquakes, some as large as magnitude 5.

U.N.-hired volcanologists said that the eruptions from Mt. Nyiragongo are over for now but that it isn’t possible to predict when the volcano will strike again.

“Nyiragongo is taking a small rest,” said Dieudonne Wafula, the local volcanologist who predicted last week’s eruption a few days before it happened.

On Tuesday, there was evidence that some people had suffered horrific deaths. Reporters saw what appeared to be the skulls of two young children lying in a bed surrounded by charred bones. Outside their home, the carcass of the family dog rested on another pile of lava, a grimace frozen on its face.

Not far away, young men swinging sledgehammers smashed massive lava rocks, clearing a path where trucks dumped loads of black gravel. By day’s end, a new road was built, bridging a city sliced in two by the lava flow.

Michael Despines, who heads the International Rescue Committee in Goma, said the relief group will use the new road to transport large tanks of water to a once inaccessible area. “People are hungry and thirsty,” Despines said. “We’re trying to move 100 mph to help them get food and clean water.”

There were signs that despite the disaster, many Gomans were trying to bring some sense of normality to their lives. A man barbecued his family’s dinner, a goat, on the hot lava. Another family swam in Lake Kivu, not far from where lava was still seeping into the water, creating large clouds of steam.

U.N. officials in Geneva said they will ask donors for $15 million to help victims. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees plans to distribute 75,000 blankets, cooking sets, plastic sheets and other supplies for families who have been forced to sleep outside, said Paul Stromberg, an agency spokesman.

Many victims shared what little food and shelter they had with friends and relatives.

Kabwe Tshingoma, a 22-year-old law student, said he and his nine-member family returned home from Gisenyi, Rwanda--a border town to which hundreds of thousands of Congolese had fled--to find all their furniture, food and clothing looted. Since then, the family has had to rely on neighbors for food. In return, the family has provided shelter for other neighbors whose homes were covered by the fast-moving lava.

“We have to help each other,” Tshingoma said. “Aid may come, but in the end, all we have is each other.”