Mud Volcano Has Cost Over Three Billion Dollars
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mud Volcano Has Cost Over Three Billion Dollars*
Jakarta (AFP) April 13, 2007
Indonesia's disastrous "mud volcano" has caused more than three billion
dollars worth of losses after spewing toxic sludge that displaced 15,000
people, a report said Thursday.
The mudflow, blamed on exploratory drilling gone wrong, swamped homes
and damaged roads, a railway and a gas pipeline, causing overall losses
of 3.04 billion dollars since it began in May, a government agency said.
The National Development Planning Agency said in a report the losses
were both direct and indirect as the crater has disrupted the local
economy of the affected area near Surabaya, East Java, the Antara news
service said.
The losses could rise to 44.7 trillion rupiah (4.91 billion dollars)
unless the steaming mud hole stops disgorging sludge, the report said,
according to Antara.
Indonesia's government this week agreed to spend 275 million dollars to
relocate the infrastructure damaged by the mud. It is also trying to
plug the crater by dropping thousands of chained concrete balls into the
hole.
Some experts say the audacious and experimental home-grown plan will not
work. Hundreds of chains of heavy balls have been dropped into the
crater, but the mud is still flowing.
The planning agency's report also recommends the government set a
deadline for compensating the people affected by the mud, a cost to be
borne by the drilling firm accused of triggering the disaster, PT
Lapindo Brantas.
The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 acres). Experts are
unsure how long the crater will spew mud if left unchecked, with some
suggesting it could be years.
Source: Agence France-Presse