I had heard about that before but thought only a dozen or so people died. I looked it up and it was actually 1700 deaths. Hiding the link due to disturbing medical images, though you don’t see them unless you scroll down a bit:
There was a similar incident on a smaller scale in Cameroon two years before the Lake Nyos disaster (both cases described here and in detail in *Perils of a Restless Planet" by Ernest Zebrowski Jr., who also wrote an excellent book on the Mt. Pelee volcanic eruption in 1902).
I read that the likelihood of it happening again is high, but many of the residents opt not to leave.
I’m convinced that my roommates and I were suffering from low-level carbon monoxide exposure, my senior year in college.
The apartment’s windows and doors leaked like sieves. So in January, we put up weatherstripping. And for the next 2 months, we were tired all the time, no matter how much rest we got. After spring break (early March), we felt a lot better.
In hindsight, that was because in March, we no longer needed the furnace! Years later, I read an article about CO poisoning and went HOLY SHIT.
Re CO2: enough of it could certainly be a problem, as partygoers found out in Russia a few years ago:
Three die in dry-ice incident at Moscow pool party (bbc.com)
In Little House On The Prairie, Pa and a friend were digging a well. The friend was working down in the hole, and passed out; Pa had to get down there and drag him back up. Later, he made a bundle with some gunpowder in burlap, lit lt, and tossed it down the hole; the resulting small explosion, he said, would clear out the gas that was heavier than the air.
Would that have been CO2?
There was a story a while back where a host through a bunch of dry ice into his pool at a party. I think some people died.
Is the incident in the post right above yours the one you’re thinking of, or another one?
Maybe? Maybe not enough air flow in a narrow hole and exhaled CO2 accumulated?
Here’s the story:
Missed the pool party link. That was probably it.
CO2, while it is heavier than air, just takes a bit to disperse fully.
Those volcanic lakes release the CO2 at ground level so it stays at ground level at first but disperses. Wind, geography all play a role. (Being located at the bottom of a crater doesn’t help.)
CO2 from a large chunk of dry ice might pose a risk to a small kid playing on the floor. But if the eventual concentration is harmless, this is going ot be a temporary effect.