Democratic Republic of Congo (January 22, 2002) - From the air, it looks like an octopus with four massive tentacles uncoiled across miles of verdant, green jungle. From the ground, it confronts you at unexpected corners in a steaming, purple blob. If this were a movie, it would be called "The Thing That Ate Goma."

After erupting last Thursday and sending rivers of lava down the main streets of eastern Congo’s largest town, the Nyiragongo volcano has largely ceased its rumbling. Lava flows are slowly cooling into brittle, rock-hard formations and the noxious sulphuric fumes -- a mixture of rotten eggs and gasoline -- are slowly abating. Yet even as the volcano begins to settle down, the dilemmas facing humanitarian agencies like CARE are beginning to erupt.

As Nyiragongo groans and shifts, aid agencies are positioning food, blankets, water and other essential emergency aid. The roads north to Goma are filling with trucks bearing relief supplies, and Rwanda’s main airport in Kigali is bracing for an influx of relief flights.

Refugees in a Rwandan border town wait to board a ferry.

CARE is helping coordinate more than 50 aid agencies working in the region. At CARE offices in the Rwandan cities of Kigali and Ruhengeri, emergency relief experts are developing a number of plans to help residents of Goma. CARE already has distributed firewood, cups, plates and water containers for 5,000 refugees in Rwanda, and is preparing to distribute 20,000 blankets and 5,000 plastic sheets for shelters. In addition, CARE has relocated a mobile health clinic to treat refugees, many of whom suffer respiratory infections, malaria, upset stomachs and headaches.

And as many of the estimated 300,000 refugees, fed up with camping in the chilly Rwandan highlands, now return to what remains of their homes in Goma, CARE is redirecting supplies to be distributed by partner agencies there, including water containers, plates, cups and pots.

"I would rather die in my country than here," says Rigobert Ngumyago, a student from Goma. His is a common refrain heard along Rwanda’s congested northern road to Goma. Many of the transit points along the road, where CARE and other humanitarian organizations offer health services and distribute supplies, are emptying as word spreads that the lava has stopped its relentless attack on the city.

A boy stands in the business district of Goma.

But where to go? One of the rivers of lava, now a smoldering swath of purple rock, lies two meters deep upon one of the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-stricken city. From a distance, all that remains is the pointed roof of a church and the odd, incongruous treetop. Another slash of lava obliterated the airport runway, the only major runway for more than 100 miles, and plowed a path through houses and businesses on its way to a steaming demise in Lake Kivu. Goma is now neatly dissected by the two massive lava flows, forcing residents to scramble up the still-smoking piles to reach their friends and relatives on each side.

This is worrying. Lava can generate heat of more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, and although it is cooling, some piles are still hot enough to fry an egg on. Aid workers also fear that the rock may still be too unstable to support the weight of a human being; like ice, the surface crust can break to reveal the scorching lava below.

While CARE's short-term goal is to get people to safety and provide for their immediate needs, over the long term, "agencies must look at aid that does not make decisions for the victims," says Jumbe Sebunya, deputy director of CARE’s programs in East Africa. It’s the difference, for example, between a water tanker in Goma, which might lure residents back to an unstable environment, or distribution of water-purification tablets that can travel anywhere. "Goma’s people," Sebunya says, "ultimately will choose where their home will be."

Most importantly, aid should not destroy what relief workers call "local coping mechanisms" -- "the resources and skills people bring to their own recovery effort," adds Anne Morris, CARE’s country director in Rwanda.

This is not the first time the 11,000-foot Mt. Nyiragongo has menaced Goma. Part of the Virunga chain of eight volcanoes that stretch across the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Nyiragongo is among the most active volcanoes in Africa. In 1977, scores of people perished when a lake of lava inside the volcano buckled and drained, spewing hellish liquid out through fissures at its base. Goma was spared, but the mountain's angry rumblings continued, along with spectacular fountains and explosions of lava. In June 1994, as Goma played host to more than 1 million Rwandans fleeing civil war in their country, the lava lake ominously refilled. Aid workers often worked -- and worried -- in the eerie red light cast by Nyiragongo’s flaming crown. Last Thursday, that crown erupted.

And there are other dangers. Lake Kivu, which hugs the flank of western Rwanda and halts at the shores of Goma, is notorious for the deadly bursts of carbon dioxide and methane gas it occasionally emits from fissures deep below the water. Dr. Klaus Tietze, a scientist who has studied Lake Kivu and other gaseous lakes, recently warned that, "There is not only carbon dioxide dissolved in the lake water, but also methane, which could lead to local explosions."

Then there are the aftershocks from the eruption. Towns and cities as far away as Kigali (approximately 60 miles from Goma) continue to shake. In Gisenyi, the neighboring Rwandan town to Goma, relief workers have been sleeping in the open, fearing their houses and hotels might come crashing down. In Goma, a muted roar from the volcano accompanies the aftershocks, increasing the anxiety of an already over-stressed population.

Another key concern is the poisonous lava that has poured into a lake that many people use for drinking water. And with water and sanitation wiped out in Goma, aid officials fear a cholera outbreak similar to the one that followed the 1977 eruption.

"(Goma is) very dangerous," says Bora Maheshe, a law student from Goma, who stands shivering in a Rwandan transit camp, waiting for a distribution of CARE cooking materials. "If we go back, we need help. Even if we (choose to) relocate, we need help."

In the aftermath of the eruption, relocation is a subject of great debate among refugees. Already, the local authorities are encouraging residents to relocate to the town of Rutshuru, about 37 miles north of Goma. But the relocation of an entire town is an expensive and arduous prospect.

"It’s a catastrophe," says a young man from Goma as he stares in disgust at the wall of solid lava rock where his house once stood. Now, he says, it’s all "pourri" -- a French word that can mean both spoiled and rotten. In this case, he means both.