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Indonesian Mud Volcano Spewing More Slowly
Jakarta (AFP) March 14, 2007 Toxic sludge is spewing much more slowly from an Indonesian "mud volcano" after an innovative bid to staunch the flow which has displaced 15,000 people, an official said Wednesday. Estimates had suggested 125,000 to 160,000 cubic metres of mud flowed from the crater daily, equivalent to the volume of about 40 to 50 Olympic size swimming pools. An experimental attempt to partially plug the mud crater with chains of heavy concrete balls is underway, but some say it will not work. "We estimate a decrease of around 80,000 to 90,000 cubic metres a day," Rudy Novrianto, a spokesman for the government team handling the crisis, told AFP. But he added the team was trying to devise more accurate ways of measuring the flow. The assessment is currently based partly on how much mud is held back behind emergency dykes, which keep breaking and spilling the sludge. Workers at the crater near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya aim to staunch the mudflow by 50-70 percent by dropping the chains of balls into the hole. Umar Fauzi, a physicist from Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, which devised the concrete ball plan, said all the 374 chains initially planned would be dropped into the crater this week, with 314 deposited already. "We should be able to put in all chains of concrete balls in two days," he told AFP. He said there had been an increase in gas emissions from the crater, which could be because of lower mud pressure -- although the gas, rising in thick white plumes, is poisonous. Fauzi said the team would make an evaluation after reaching the target of 374 but continue inserting more chains to slow the flow. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordered the effort to continue for another month. The government expects to spend around 370 million dollars tackling the phenomenon. About 3,000 residents from the crater's site in Sidoarjo, East Java, who have yet to be compensated after the mud swamped their homes, plan to demonstrate at the presidential palace in Jakarta, state media said. The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May last year after exploratory gas drilling at the site by local firm PT Lapindo Brantas. The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 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
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