HUMAN SETTLEMENT DYNAMICS AND CONCERNS IN THE BOYO-MENCHUM LAKE NYOS POST-DISASTER CAMPS, NORTH WEST REGION OF CAMEROON

Abstract

Natural and human induced disasters has resorted to untold damages such as increasing human fatalities, forced relocation and continue mutation of human settlements. The Lake Nyos gas disaster of 1986 that completely devastated the villages of Nyos, Chah and Subum is just one of such disasters. This study xrays the evolution of post-disaster settlements and their resulting effects in the Boyo-Menchum Basin. The study adopted both purposive and random sampling techniques to sample ten villages with direct links to the Lake Nyos gas disaster. Primary and secondary sources were exploited for data collection. Primary sources made used of questionnaires, focused group discussions, field observation, transect walks and participatory rural appraisals while secondary data was collected from institutional reports, minutes, and peer review journals. Semi closed questionnaires collected were imputed into an Excel spread sheet and data transformed into tables and charts while qualitative data was sorted out manually. Human settlements in the study area have remained dynamic in their forms, types and locations. Findings revealed six types of post-disaster settlement phases being disaster affected villages, emergency centres, planned resettlement camps, self-resettle, self-relocation, and unresettled villages. The creation of these varied settlements were owing to weak powers of the traditional rulers, relatively number of survivors, dilapidated state of houses at the resettlement camps and low infrastructural development. Temporal resettlement camps in the study area have in the long run become permanent settlements thus, a comprehensive renovation of houses in the resettlement camps and accurate lay down of modalities to encourage and secured the returning population are required.