Indonesia attempts to plug mud volcano
Pastor Dale Morgan
Indonesia attempts to plug volcano*
Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent
Thursday February 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Scientists in Indonesia will tomorrow begin dropping huge concrete balls
chained together into the mouth of a mud volcano in a desperate attempt
to staunch the relentless flow that has wiped out villages, factories
and vast tracts of farmland.
The operation to lower 2,000 of the enormous balls, chained together in
groups, into the mouth of the rupture has been postponed several times
already, but the gantry to allow the operation to begin is now in place.
However, British experts who have closely monitored the mud volcano -
known locally as Lusi - are sceptical about whether the effort will halt
the outpouring of noxious gas, mud and boiling water that has been
spewing at a rate of 1m barrels every day for nine months.
They fear the pressurised underground reservoir responsible for the
sludge that has inundated four villages and 25 factories near Surabaya,
Indonesia's second city, will find other fissures to the surface in
possibly more dangerous or difficult areas.
Professor Richard Davies, a mud volcano expert at Durham University who
is currently visiting the site, has said the eruption was almost
certainly triggered by exploratory drilling for gas, rather than an
earthquake several days earlier.
The findings directly contradicted the assertion of the Indonesian
welfare minister, Aburizal Barkie, who said it was a natural disaster.
His family controls PT Lapindo Brantas, the drilling company at the
centre of an environmental scandal that has left 11,000 people homeless.
The operation to lower the sets of concrete balls, each weighing up
400kg, into the rupture will begin slowly. It is hoped that the ball and
chain set will be dropped to a depth of 100 metres with the aim of
slowing the flow by up to 70% rather than halting it completely.
However, Lapindo Brantas initially tried to staunch the flow by pumping
mud and concrete into the mouth of the volcano. Eventually, the pressure
of the mud burst from fissures around the plug.
The Indonesian government has ordered Lapindo Brantas to pay £220m in
damages, including £145m to the victims of the disaster.
The hope is that the chained balls will move together and be more likely
to lodge in a place where the friction will reduce the mud flow, which
has already covered an area of 10km sq to a depth of 10 metres.
However, Dr Richard Swarbrick, of the Durham-based consultancy
GeoPressure Technology, does not believe the strategy will solve the
problem of the flow, which could eventually cause the earth's crust to
buckle under the weight.
"I have no doubt that if the balls remain at a reasonable level they
will slow the flow," he said. "The difficulty is that it will not solve
the overall problem.
"The risk is that if you check the event you will force the water and
mud to come out somewhere else, and that could be a great deal more
dangerous than managing it where it is now."