Timeline Thursday 17 January 2002

Events on Thursday 17 January 2002 2

• 1916 – 2002 Camilo Jose Cela (1916-2002) Died 17 January 2002, aged 85 The Spanish writer Camilo Jose Cela won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989. His 1942 novel The Family of Pascual Duarte, a grim tale of rural violence, helped revive the Spanish novel after the civil war, and The Hive portrayed the hunger of postwar Madrid. He was a divisive figure who had worked as a censor under Franco before serving as a senator in the democratic era.
• 2002 Mount Nyiragongo eruption Lava flows destroy much of Goma Mount Nyiragongo in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo erupted on 17 January 2002, sending fast-moving lava through the city of Goma to the shore of Lake Kivu. About 400,000 people fled, many crossing into neighbouring Rwanda, and a large part of the city centre was buried. Dozens were killed, some in an explosion at a petrol station engulfed by lava.