The attempt to plug the "mud volcano" involves dropping hundreds of concrete balls chained together in groups into the well, which is operated by PT Lapindo Brantas.

"We are still not ready with all the necessary preparations and now it looks like the operation will only be possible on Friday at the earliest," Rudi Novrianto, spokesman for the government team handling the crisis, told AFP.

He said the crane which will lift the balls and drop them into the crater was not yet in place.

Novrianto has said the team planned to gradually drop about 375 chains of linked balls of differing sizes, each chain weighing between 400 and 500 kilograms (880 to 1,100 pounds).

The concrete balls, devised by experts at the state-run Bandung Institute of Technology, are expected to still allow the mud to flow out, but at a much reduced volume.

The team hopes to slow down the outflow by between 50 and 70 percent.

The advancing sea of mud has blocked a nearby main road and is now threatening to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.

However several geologists, including Edi Sunardi from the University of Pajajaran, have said the scheme will likely fail.

"We are looking at a plane, and you cannot plug such a plane with concrete balls," Sunardi said, adding that the pressure may even push the balls back to the surface.

Top welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie claimed last month that the flow was a "natural disaster" unrelated to the drilling activities of Lapindo, which belongs to a group controlled by his family.

However, a study by British experts said the eruption was most likely caused by drilling for gas.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has already ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (420 million dollars) in compensation and costs related to the disaster.

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