GISENYI (Rwanda), Jan 19: Hundreds of thousands of terrified and hungry refugees were on Saturday trying to find refuge from heaving lava streams and earthquakes in eastern Congo and western Rwanda.

Estimates of the number of refugees varied but about 400,000 people were thought to be in and around Gisenyi waiting for deliveries of food and water.

Border controls collapsed under the pressure of refugees who fled from the Congo town of Goma where at least 45 people - and probably more - died on Thursday when the Mount Nyiragongo volcano in eastern Congo erupted. Massive damage was caused to Goma.

Many of the refugees fled to Gisenyi, just across the Rwandan border, but when the town was hit on Friday night and Saturday by severe earthquakes and lava flows, many tried to return to Goma.

On Saturday two streams of lava threatened Gisenyi as the earthquakes tore crevasses in the volcanic soil.

Aid organisations tried to lead refugees to two camps 40 kilometres to the north near the Rwandan town of Ruhengeri.

One aid worker, Alison Preston, of World Vision International, said the tremors happened every 20 to 30 minutes during the night in Gisenyi.

Aid workers described scenes of chaos. Children had been separated from their parents. Agencies were establishing reception centres and food distribution points along the road to Ruhengeri and were trying to assess the number of people in need.

As warnings were sounded about the risks of cholera outbreaks, the United Nations childrens organisation, UNICEF, estimated the total number of homeless people at 500,000. UNICEF began a major emergency programme on Friday for at least 50,000 families.

Staff at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that up to 80 per cent of Goma was destroyed.

A 300-metre broad stream of lava had cut the city in two and cut off the escape route for thousands of people in the city centre, said Karl Ginter, spokesman for the German Welthungerhilfe aid organisation in Goma.

Eye-witnesses said the city was underneath a cloud of dark soot and covered in a sea of glowing lava. Huge holes and fissures were appearing in the ground.

Plunderers moved in Friday to pillage those houses still standing, workers said.

A skeleton staff from the U.N. peacekeeping operation returned to their base in Goma on Saturday morning and found it undamaged, according to Peter Hornsby, logistics officer with a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Congo. But the lava had come within 100 metres of the base, he said.

A fire continued to burn on Goma’s airport runway, across the road from the U.N. office.

Eyewitnesses said the lava was flowing at speeds of up to 60 kilometres an hour into the Lake Kivu, which is at the border between Congo and Rwanda. Fears were increasing that the ground water in the region would become polluted and that poisous gases would be released from the lake waters

But the lava flow was said to be slowing Saturday. Over a dozen villages on the slopes of the volcano were said to have been destroyed.

The German Development Ministry has made available one millars) for relief. The German Foreign Office had already made available 300,000 euros (265,000 dollars).

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has pledged U.N. help for both the Congo and Rwanda.

The British government has promised an ain pounds (2.87 million dollars).

The U.N. was preparing to transport by helicopter a team of vulcanologists to take a closer look at the volcano and determine if the eruption has stopped.—dpa