A contingency and evacuation plan for the city of Goma launched at the Prime Minister’s Office

Kinshasa, May 23^th, 2021 (CPA).- A contingency and evacuation plan for the city of Goma was launched on Saturday, following a crisis meeting chaired on Saturday, at the Prime Minister’s office by Prime Minister Jean- Michel Sama Lukonde, following the eruption of the Nyirangongo volcano in this city in North Kivu. « Urgent solutions including, in particular, a contingency plan for the evacuation of the city of Goma, has been launched and the various services have been mobilized for the cause. The evolution of the situation will be communicated as they arise, « said Government spokesman Patrick Muyaya. This meeting, to which political and administrative authorities as well as experts in the field were invited, focused on the analysis of the situation on the spot, with a view to taking appropriate measures to save human lives and the property of the Congolese living in this part of the territory of the DRC. This meeting was attended by the Minister of State, Minister of the Budget, Aimé Boji Sangara as well as the Ministers of Transport, communication routes and opening up, Chérubin Okende Senga, Communication and Media, Patrick Muyaya and Social Affairs, Modest Mutinga. The civil protection service urges the population to be channeled to safe places The military governor of North Kivu, Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, who confirmed on Saturday, in an early evening message to the residents of Goma, that the Nyiragongo volcano erupted around 7 p.m. provincial coordinator of civil protection to give ample explanations to the population to channel them towards the directions where they will be safe. Lieutenant-General Constant Ndima, who indicated this after a meeting of technicians from the Goma Volcanic Observatory (OVG) on the behavior to be adopted by the population, asked the population to remain calm and to follow the instructions of the provincial coordinator of civil protection as well as the orientations of the police and the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) on the ground. In the Majengo, Kasika and Buhene neighborhoods, there has been a massive displacement of the population towards downtown Goma located at low altitude. A lava flow from the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo stopped on Sunday morning, a few hundred meters from the city limits of Goma, to come to rest in the suburb of Buhene. ACP/