Mud volcano filling 60 pools a day
Pastor Dale Morgan
Mud volcano filling 60 pools a day*
By Nabiha Shahab in Jakarta
May 28, 2008 12:56pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
TWO years after it oozed into life, Indonesia's "mud volcano" is still
spewing toxic sludge across the Javanese countryside at the rate of 60
Olympic swimming pools a day.
And the more homes and farms that disappear beneath its stinking grey
goo, the louder the calls for justice from hundreds of displaced
families who are awaiting compensation.
"There is always a fear that even where we are staying we will be
flooded with mud. Recently the dyke at Renokenongo subsided two metres,
new gas leaks are everywhere," said Sunarto, who lives near the mudflow.
"When the wind blows westward we can smell the strong odour from here.
It seems like there's no end, but there would be if only the Government
would act more swiftly."
Like something from a B-list 1950s horror movie, Sunarto's nightmare
began two years ago on Thursday when the mud first emerged from beneath
the earth and began to swallow a corner of Sidoarjo district in East Java.
It came from a gas well where Lapindo Brantas, a company owned by the
family of billionaire welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, was drilling
without proper equipment.
Lapindo says the disaster was triggered by an earlier earthquake in the
central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, which it says squeezed open the
earth's pores and brought the sea of methane-filled mud squirting to the
surface.
Villages too scared to cook
But while the authorities argue over who, if anyone, is to blame, the
mud marches on, burying villages and making people ill with foul plumes
of highly concentrated methane gas. Worried locals have said it gets so
bad they are afraid to cook in case the flammable cloud explodes.
"The latest data from March this year shows around 640 hectares (1580
acres) of land is flooded by the mud," said Ahmad Zulkarnain, spokesman
for the Government team which is responding to the disaster.
Up to 150,000 cubic metres - equivalent to 60 Olympic-sized swimming
pools - of hot sludge is still gushing from the volcano's steaming lips
every day, he said.
So far all efforts to stem the mudlow, including dropping huge concrete
balls down the hole, have failed.
Twelve villages have been affected and at least 36,000 people have been
forced to flee their homes.
"Two villages, Kedungbendo and Renokenongo, are completely inundated,
the other 10 are partially affected," said Mr Zulkarnain.
Aerial photographs of Kedungbendo and Renokenongo show nothing but
rooftops poking through the thick slime.
Ignoring the company's excuses, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last
year ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah ($437.8 million) for
compensation and mud containment efforts.
The Government has also decided to allot 700 billion rupiah in state
funds to the relief and rebuilding effort, although it is unclear how
much of that money has been dispersed.
Many locals complain however that it is too little, too late.
Lapindo boss Asia's richest man
Lapindo executive Yuniwati Teryana told AFP the company had already
spent 3.2 trillion rupiah on land compensation and rebuilding even
though a court ruled in December that the mudflow was a "natural disaster".
Lapindo patriarch Bakrie was named Indonesia's richest man in a report
by GlobeAsia magazine this week, with an estimated net worth of $US9.2
billion ($A9.6 billion) amassed through energy, property and
communications investments.
Most of the 12,039 claimants to the company's money, those who could
produce documentation of ownership, have received a first instalment of
20 per cent of the value of their land, Ms Teryana said.
The remainder will be paid later this month, she promised.
"The rest who cannot show a land ownership certificate will be resettled
with the same land area as the one they lost," she said, adding that
more than 1000 claimants would be compensated in this way.
But another 582 households or 2000 people are still living in makeshift
shelters, refusing both payment schemes and demanding Lapindo buy their
lost homes so they can rebuild elsewhere.
Sunarto, his wife, two children and two other relatives are among those
refusing to budge, even though Lapindo has stopped giving them daily
food rations and despite having to buy clean water.
"Lapindo offered to relocate us but unless they give us guarantees about
when we can actually see and move into our new homes I won't give them
my documents," Sunarto said.