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Word of the tragedy did not reach the town of Wum, just ten miles west, until late the next afternoon. A government employee who had been motorcycling to Nios from Wum first discovered the disaster. When he came upon a dead antelope, he thought he had had a stroke of luck, and happily strapped the animal to his bike. But when he got closer to Nios, the impact of what had happened struck him as he saw more and more bodies of people and animals. Fighting back dizziness, he returned to Wum. Late that day, his ghastly report finally reached Yaounde.
Even then, officials did not grasp the enormity of the problem. They apparently assumed that the fallout from Nios would be no more severe than a similar incident two years ago (see box). Moreover, authorities were distracted by the impending arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the first such visit by an Israeli head of government to a black African state in 20 years. Although Peres and Cameroon President Paul Biya signed an agreement renewing diplomatic relations, their meeting was quickly upstaged by the drama evolving on the northwestern border.
Indeed, Peres' visit may be remembered less for any savvy statesmanship than for his swift response to the emergency. Just three hours before Peres was to make his flight from Tel Aviv to Yaounde, the first reports of the gas disaster began to circulate outside Cameroon. Half a ton of medical supplies was promptly loaded onto the Prime Minister's Israeli air force Boeing 707, and a 17-member army medical team was hastily assembled to accompany the official party. Although the Israeli group landed in Yaounde last Monday, the crude internal travel conditions made it impossible for the medics to reach victims hospitalized in Nkambe, some 60 miles from the disaster zone, for another two days.
By then a full international relief effort was under way. Washington dispatched two crews of scientists and physicians to the disaster site, one team assigned to identify the specific gas involved in the catastrophe, the other to study what had happened and determine whether a recurrence was possible. The $250,000 U.S. aid package, which included tents and food supplies, came in response to a request from Biya for assistance. Canada, Britain, West Germany and Spain also responded to the call, sending money and tons of medical and food supplies. Cameroonian officials, as unsettled by the onslaught of relief aid as by the crisis itself, quickly set up a national disaster committee. "Our first priority," announced Committee Chairman Jean Marcel Mengueme, "is to set our priorities."
A top one was to provide immediate shelter, food and consolation for the refugees who continued to stream out of the afflicted hillside settlements. Late last week army vehicles, Land Rovers and pickup trucks moaned up and down the rain-sodden paths, shuttling evacuees and their possessions to Wum and Nkambe, where doctors, social workers and such conveniences as running water, electricity and telephones awaited.