Lava flows from Mount Cameroon

Lava has started to flow again from Mount Cameroon but government officials said on state radio there was no immediate cause for alarm, news organisations reported on Wednesday. It is unclear exactly when the volcano started to erupt, although residents of Buea in southwestern Cameroon, the town closest to the volcano, said there were light earth tremors on Monday and thick smoke and fire at the top of the mountain, Reuters reported state radio as saying. Cameroon's Minister for Scientific and Technical Affairs, Henri Hogbe Nlend, who surveyed the volcano from a helicopter, said that it presented no danger to the local population, news reports said. Mount Cameroon last erupted in March and April 1999 and the authorities evacuated residents of villages around the volcano. It lies along a geological fault that includes two lakes, Nyos and Mounoun, where emissions of toxic gases killed many people in the 1980's.