Buea residents return home

People who had fled the Buea area after Mount Cameroon’s eruption on Sunday have started returning to the town, an official of a relief agency told IRIN today from the West African nation. According to the relief official, local radio reported that no one had died or been injured as a result of the eruption, but that around 20 families had lost their homes. However, ‘Le Messager’ newspaper reported that about 100 buildings had been destroyed and that there had been around 50 tremors on Sunday and Monday. According to local radio, lava was still flowing on Monday but it was moving towards the sea, not towards population centres. Asked whether there was any fear of a humanitarian disaster, the relief official said: “At this point, it does not look like it, but we’re trying to keep an eye on it.” The eruption, Mount Cameroon’s sixth, had sent people in and around the town of Buea, which lies close to the volcano, fleeing to Douala and the petroleum mining centre of Limbe to the south. Buea, a town of around 250,000 people, is some 60 km west of Douala, Cameroon’s commercial capital.