For Baby, Elderly Man, a Reprieve From Fumes of Death

A 6-day-old baby boy and and an 80-year-old man lay in an ill-equipped hospital Wednesday after a miraculous escape from the toxic gas fumes that killed at least 1,500 people in northwest Cameroon.

The old man, who identified himself as Ngong, said he was rescued semi-conscious in the village of Nios near Lake Nios, from which the gas erupted.

The gas poisoned residents of three villages, and only a few of Nios’ more than 1,000 inhabitants survived.

“I was sleeping and I heard noises and people speaking,” Ngong said. “Then I fell down. I could not get up and I could not speak.”

When he regained consciousness the next day, eight of the nine people who had been sleeping in the same room lay dead beside him.

The baby boy, oblivious to the disaster that hit his village, was only slightly injured.

Doctors said 270 people affected by the gas were evacuated from the stricken villages to Wum’s hospital. One died Wednesday morning and 50 are seriously injured and in dire need of oxygen supplies.

At least 50 of the 270 are children, many of whom survived because they slept through the noise and panic while their elders rushed outside, only to be asphyxiated.

Officials here say between 250 and 300 died in the village of Souboum and just over 50 in the other stricken village of Cha.

A 90-year-old man from Cha said he awoke coughing up blood. He lost his 40-year-old daughter and lay trembling until he was rescued in the morning.

A woman from Souboum said she was awakened by the crowing of cocks. She said she smelled gunpowder before collapsing unconscious. Other patients described a smell of rotten eggs.