Indonesian Mud Volcano Might Be Calming Down

SHAKE AND BLOW

The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May after exploratory drilling at the site by local gas firm PT Lapindo Brantas. AFP image.

by Staff Writers
Jakarta (AFP) March 12, 2007
An attempt to plug an Indonesian "mud volcano" with concrete balls has managed to calm it, an expert said Monday, nine months after the crater began oozing sludge that displaced 15,000 people. "If you ask me, it appears calmer, but that is a subjective view," said Satria Bijaksana from Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, which devised the plan to slow the disastrous mudflow.

The Bandung team was trying to devise a more objective way of evaluating the effectiveness of the concrete balls, the physicist added.

Workers at the crater near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya aim to staunch the toxic flow by 50-70 percent by dropping chains of heavy concrete balls into the funnel.

Some experts say the audacious but experimental plan has little chance of success. The crater has consumed more than 220 chains from an initial target of 374 and is still spewing steaming mud.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week instructed the effort to continue for another month. The government expects to spend around 370 million dollars tackling the phenomenon.

The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May after exploratory drilling at the site by local gas firm PT Lapindo Brantas.

The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,482 acres), including many homes, and threatens to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.

Experts are unsure how long the crater will spew mud if left unchecked, with some suggesting it could be years.

Source: Agence France-Presse

Email This Article

SHAKE AND BLOW

Advanced Technology Peers Deep Inside Hurricanes

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 07, 2007
Determined to understand why some storms grow into hurricanes while others fizzle, NASA scientists recently looked deep into thunderstorms off the African coast using satellites and airplanes. During July and August 2006, a team of international scientists, including NASA researchers, journeyed to the west coast of Africa.

DISASTER MANAGEMENT Indonesia Allots One Billion Dollars To Prevent Floods Relief Flows Into Indonesia Quake Area As Death Toll Revised Down Global Disaster Bill Declines In 2006 Says Swiss Re Death And Destruction After Powerful Indonesia Quake	CLIMATE SCIENCE Climate Shifts And The Probability Of Randomness EU Summit Seeks Unity On Tackling Global Warming Banning New Coal Power Plants Will Slow Warming The U.N.'s War On Global Warming
EARTH OBSERVATION Space Scientists To Take The Pulse Of Planet Earth Climate Change View Clearer With New Oceans Satellite Satellite Scientists Set To Descend On Hobart CSIRO Imagery Shows Outer Great Barrier Reef At Risk From River Plumes	ENERGY TECH Unlocking The Secrets Of High-Temperature Superconductors China Bans New Small Coal-Based Power Generators Progress Made in Biomass-to-Biofuels Conversion Process Wen Says China Must Stop Wasting Energy
EPIDEMICS Genome Sequence Shows What Makes Bacteria Dangerous For Troops In Iraq A Year Of Added Life More Valuable For The Young Researchers Reconstruct Spread Of Bird Flu From China Troubling Trends In AIDS Cases	FLORA AND FAUNA Remote Sheep Population Resists Genetic Drift Social Tolerance Allows Bonobos To Outperform Chimpanzees On A Cooperative Task Why Do Birds Migrate Some Corals Might Be Able To Fight The Heat
FROTH AND BUBBLE Bacterium Could Treat PCBs Without The Need For Dredging Asian Pollution Linked To Stronger Pacific Storm System Canada's Oil Sands To Keep Polluting As An Economy Blossoms An Ancient Capital Suffocates	ABOUT US Getting On Your Nerves And Repairing Them These Legs Were Made for Fighting Not Just Climbing Over You Could Baby Boomers Be Approaching Retirement In Worse Shape Than Their Predecessors Time For TV Detox

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement