Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

[Shiloh]

Source: http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1803925

Mud volcano may collapse
May 28, 2008 8:42 PM

Indonesia's disastrous mud volcano is collapsing on itself, according to new research released on the second anniversary of the ever-growing environmental catastrophe.

Each day, 100,000 cubic metres of hot, stinking sludge continues to ooze from the mystifying mud volcano, which burst through the earth two years ago during deep drilling at a nearby exploratory well, linked to Indonesia's richest man and also part-owned by Australian company Santos.

The grey-brown ooze now covers seven square kilometres in heavily populated East Java.

It has swallowed 11 villages, including thousands of homes, businesses, paddy fields and mosques.

Now a new report warns the bleak, sodden landscape is sinking - and could subside by as much as 146 metres over the coming years.

It has subsided four centimetres each day for more than a year due to the sheer weight of the mud, and the collapse of a layer of rock as mud gushes from beneath it, says the report, by Durham University UK and Indonesia's Institute of Technology Bandung.

But there also have been sudden collapses of up to three metres in some areas.

Scientists warn that as it sinks, new faults are forming, allowing water to spurt to the surface in previously unaffected
areas.

Co-author Professor Richard Davies said the sudden collapses indicated the beginnings of a caldera, or large crater formed by the subsidence of the volcano's cone.

"The most negative effects of the collapse are that new faults are forming," Davies said.

"This is allowing new conduits of fluid and gas to come to the surface.

"Outside the mud volcano there are actually new vents forming, water is suddenly spurting to the surface.

"Basically the mud volcano has a life of its own now."

He hoped future research would focus on how long the mud volcano would continue to spew sludge.

"I suspect it will carry on in some form, even at very slow rates of eruption, probably for decades," he said.

"The mud volcano was initially man-made, but now its a huge system that is effectively natural - it's formed its own natural plumbing system and I don't think there is any feasible way of stopping it now."

A study by Durham University last year found the mud eruption was "almost certainly man-made", and caused by the exploratory drilling.

But the well's operator Lapindo - linked to the powerful family of Indonesia's Public Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie - has long argued it was a natural disaster, a claim backed by a Jakarta court ruling last year.

Those closest to the disaster, refugees sheltering in a former market in nearby Porong, will mark the two-year anniversary with an early morning prayer at the mud site Thursday.

Many are yet to receive any compensation.

"I'm still living in the refugee camp of Pasar Baru," says 31-year-old Siti Mukaidah, whose house was buried by mud in Renokenongo village.

"I haven't received any (money), not even money for rent.

"It is now the commemoration of two years of the flow, so we will gather to pray at the mud dam."
Source: AAP

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Yes an ongoing disaster in East Java.

Pictures (41) here:

http://images.google.nl/imgres?imgu...no+indonesia&start=18&ndsp=18&um=1&hl=nl&sa=N

 

[mixin]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

How horrible.

Here are satellite images from the National University of Singapore showing the flow of mud over the months.
http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/coverages/mudflow/index.html

Another report from ReliefWeb mentions dropping huge concrete balls down the hole to stop it up have failed. Locals being afraid to cook for fear the flammable methane gas cloud will explode:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-7F35MX?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=AC-2006-000170-IDN

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2822749120080528?sp=true

Indonesian mud volcano could redirect rivers
Wed May 28, 2008 1:15pm EDT
By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - The collapse of the world's fastest-growing mud volcano could redirect nearby rivers and threaten villages in Indonesia, researchers said on Wednesday.

The central part of the volcano on the island of Java is collapsing at a rate of up to three meters a day sporadically, they reported in the journal Environmental Geology.

"Sidoarjo is a populated region and is collapsing as a result of the birth and growth of Lusi," Richard Davies, a geologist at Britain's University of Durham.

"This could continue to have a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area for years to come."

Villages on the outside of the mud volcano now covering seven square kilometers may be at risk in coming years, the British and Indonesian researchers said.

Thousands of homes and factories have already been submerged by the hot mud since it first started to erupt in May 2006, displacing an estimated 30,000 people.

A mud volcano is usually a naturally occurring phenomenon created when a mix of mud, water and gas forms underground and is forced to the surface. There are few thousand on earth.

Scientists say the mudflow in the Sidoarjo region, near the country's second biggest city, Surabaya, was caused by a gas drilling operation by PT Lapindo Brantas.

Lapindo and PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk, which has a stake in Lapindo, dispute that drilling caused the disaster, which started two days after a large earthquake in Central Java.

Using GPS and satellite data recorded between June 2006 and September 2007, the researchers showed the area affected by Lusi has disappeared into the ground at a rate of 0.5 meters per year on the outer edges and 14.5 meters in the centre.

"This is the first time the measurements have been taken, recorded and published," said Davies who worked on the study.

The researchers, led by Hasan Abidin of the Institute of Technology Bandung in Indonesia, calculate that if the volcano continues to erupt for three to 10 years at the constant rates measured during 2007 then the central part could collapse by as much as 146 meters.

"If we establish how long the volcano will continue to erupt then the ... data will allow us to assess the area that will ultimately be affected by this disaster," Davies said.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Maggie Fox and Robert Woodward)

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/du-wfm052708.php

Public release date: 28-May-2008
[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

Contact: Richard Davies
richard.davies@durham.ac.uk
44-191-334-2346
Durham University
World's fastest-growing mud volcano is collapsing, says new research

The world?s fastest-growing mud volcano is collapsing and could subside to depths of more than 140 metres with consequences for the surrounding environment, according to new research.

As the second anniversary (May 29) of the eruption on the Indonesian island of Java approaches, scientists have also found that the centre of the volcano ? named Lusi ? is collapsing by up to three metres overnight.

Such sudden collapses could be the beginning of a caldera - a large basin-shaped volcanic depression - according to the research team, from Durham University UK, and the Institute of Technology Bandung, in Indonesia.

Their findings, based on Global Positioning System (GPS) and satellite measurements, are due to be published in the journal Environmental Geology.

Lusi first erupted on May 29, 2006, in the Porong sub-district of Sidoarjo, close to Indonesia?s second city of Surabaya, East Java, and now covers seven square kilometres and is 20 metres thick.

In January 2007 Durham University published the first scientific report into the causes and impact of Lusi, revealing that the eruption was almost certainly manmade and caused by the drilling of a nearby exploratory borehole(1) looking for gas.

Fourteen people have been killed and 30,000 people have been evacuated from the area. More than 10,000 homes have been destroyed while schools, offices and factories have also been wiped out and a major impact on the wider marine and coastal environment is expected.

The researchers say the subsidence data could help determine how much of the local area will be affected by Lusi.

Their research used GPS and satellite data recorded between June 2006 and September 2007 that showed the area affected by Lusi had subsided by between 0.5 metres and 14.5 metres per year.

The scientists found that if Lusi continued to erupt for three to 10 years at the constant rates measured during 2007 then the central part of the volcano could subside by between 44 metres and 146 metres ? 26 metres longer than a football pitch.

They propose the subsidence is due to the weight of mud and collapse of rock strata due to the excavation of mud from beneath the surface.

Their study has also found that while some parts of Sidoarjo are subsiding others are rising suggesting that the Watukosek fault system has been reactivated due to the eruption.

Co-author Professor Richard Davies, of Durham University?s Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems (CeREES), said: ?In the two years since she first erupted Lusi has continued to grow. Our research is fundamental if we are to understand the long-term effects of the mud volcano on the local and wider environment and population.

?Sidoarjo is a populated region and is collapsing as a result of the birth and growth of Lusi. This could continue to have a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area for years to come.

?If we establish how long the volcano will continue to erupt for then the subsidence data will allow us to assess the area that will ultimately be affected by this disaster. This could have implications for future plans aimed at minimising the volcano?s overall impact.?

###

Footnote:

(1)The borehole is owned by Indonesian oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas. For more information about the January 2007 Durham University study go to: http://www.dur.ac.uk/news/newsitem/?itemno=5090&rehref=/news/archive/&resubj= Headlines

MEDIA INFORMATION

For further information contact:

Professor Richard Davies, of Durham University?s Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems (CeREES) is available for interview on:

Tuesday, May 27, on his mobile: +44 (0)787 1551 682 or email richard.davies@durham.ac.uk.

He is also available on Wednesday, May 28 and Thursday, May 29, by calling +44 (0)191 334 2346, mobile: +44 (0)787 1551 682 or email richard.davies@durham.ac.uk.

Alternatively contact Durham University Media Relations Office, +44 (0)191 334 6075 or email media.relations@durham.ac.uk

Photographs:

For aerial photograph of Lusi and photographs of the affected surrounding area, contact Durham University Media Relations Office on +44 (0)191 334 6075; email media.relations@durham.ac.uk

Captions:

Lusi 1: The main vent of the Lusi mud volcano taken within a few months of eruption.

Lusi 2: Flooded factories affected by Lusi.

Lusi 3: Flooded railway on the western side of Lusi.

Lusi 4: Satellite image of the Lusi mud volcano (please credit:: Ikonos Satellite Image, copyright CRISP NUS 2007/2008). The white plume in the centre of the picture is steam from the central vent of the volcano.

Source information:

Subsidence and uplift of Sidoarjo (East Java) due to the eruption of the Lusi mud volcano (2006-present), Abidin, HZ, Davies, RJ, et al, Environmental Geology, DOI 10.1007/s00254-008-1363-4

For a copy of the paper please contact Durham University Media Relations Office on +44 (0)191 334 6075; email media.relations@durham.ac.uk.

About mud volcanoes:

Mud volcanoes are extrusions of a water and mud mix on the earth?s surface that form cone-shaped volcanoes. These can be metres to kilometers wide and metres to hundreds of metres thick. They commonly occur in convergent tectonic settings, such as Azerbaijan, in front of deltas, such as the Mississippi and due to the gravitational collapse of continental margin sediments such as the Niger Delta.

Web links:

CeREES: http://www.dur.ac.uk/earth.sciences/research/cerees/

Environmental Geology: http://www.springer.com/geosciences/geology/journal/254

END OF NEWS RELEASE: Issued by Durham University Media Relations, +44 (0)191 334 6075; media.relations@durham.ac.uk; http://www.durham.ac.uk/news

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Editorial: Forgotten people

Today is the two-year anniversary since the mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, began, and it's appropriate to reflect on why problems remain unresolved and the government seems toothless to pursue this case.

Two years have passed since hot mud first exploded from a gas drilling well owned by oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas. While much has been done to address the resulting problems, life remains difficult for the victims, and is even becoming harder for some.

The government has established two teams to tackle the multi-faceted disaster -- to stop the mudflow, care for the victims and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

The first team, we would say, had failed in most areas. The second team, established in line with a 2007 presidential regulation, has not done much either, and the problems continue to grow.

The hot mud is still gushing uncontrollably and is submerging more villages, as thousands of victims continue to suffer and people commuting between Surabaya and the eastern part of East Java endure the traffic bottleneck in Sidoarjo.

Of all these problems, alleviating the suffering of the victims, of the people, should be the primary objective of the operation. And yet the government seems to have turned a deaf ear to their plight, especially that of the most recent victims.

The problem stems from the presidential order itself, which obliges Lapindo, the company most hated by people in the area, to compensate victims from only four villages submerged by the mud.

But since the presidential order was issued, the spreading mud has submerged several more villages -- currently, a total of fifteen villages have been affected and tens of thousands of people have been displaced.

Lapindo -- through its subsidiary Minarak Lapindo Jaya -- understandably refuses to compensate new victims living outside the four villages mentioned in the presidential order, and the government itself has been slow to respond.

So we can now see why these new victims have been demonstrating almost every day, demanding that they also be compensated for their property losses.

Even victims from the four villages are now restless, having only received 20 percent of the money owed to them, while the remaining 80 percent hangs in the air.

Compensation is only a small part of the efforts to alleviate the plight of the victims. It only covers their lost property, not their lost livelihoods, which are worth a great deal more.

As the government and Lapindo struggle to compensate all of the victims, they seem to have forgotten to address the source of the problem: stopping the mudflow.

We question why no significant efforts have been made to stop the mudflow. The most responsible parties seem to believe the mudflow is unstoppable, and have therefore given up.

We therefore welcome a civil movement by concerned citizens, led by Nahdlatul Ulama senior leader Solahuddin Wahid, the younger brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid. The group includes former Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif and mud volcano experts from several state universities. They believe the mudflow is stoppable.

Efforts like this are commendable, but unfortunately, seem to lack support from the public and political entities in this country.

Not only are efforts to stop the mudflow waning, attempts to hold Lapindo legally responsible for the disaster are also faltering.

The East Java police have named several suspects, but their criminal investigation into this calamity has ground to a halt. Dissatisfied, some civil society groups have brought legal action against Lapindo and the government, but they have all lost their cases.

So far, Lapindo -- a company controlled by the family of chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie -- has remained legally clean. The company is now even campaigning that the mudflow in Sidoarjo is the result of an earthquake in Yogyakarta, and not its drilling activity -- and the government appears to support that.

We feel the government is being toothless against Lapindo. But people are not stupid, everyone knows about the relationship between Lapindo, Bakrie and the president. The fact that the president has kept Aburizal Bakrie in his Cabinet, despite the Lapindo saga, speaks volumes.

But let them play their game, the people will eventually choose. Next year, people will decide whether they support the current president, his supporters and their political parties -- or not.

http://old.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20080529.C01&irec=0

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ga4rjbibFQ3aVYumyPWmupE-7NWwD9179JS80

Scientists blame drilling for Indonesia mud flow

By SARA SCHONHARDT ? 8 hours ago

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) ? International scientists said Tuesday they are almost certain a mud volcano that has displaced tens of thousands of villagers in central Indonesia was caused by faulty drilling of a gas exploration well ? not an earthquake as claimed by the company.

Debate over the eruption has flared since a seemingly endless torrent of hot, black sludge started oozing from a gaping hole near the country's second-largest city of Surabaya on May 29, 2006.

Well operator Lapindo Brantas, owned by the family of Indonesia's richest man, Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, says it was triggered by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that occurred 155 miles from the site two days earlier.

"We are more certain than ever that the Lusi mud volcano is an unnatural disaster and was triggered by drilling the Banjar-Panji-1 well," Richard Davies, a geologist at Durham University in Britain, said Tuesday.

He was the lead author of a study published this week in the academic journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters that said his team was 99 percent sure that drilling pressures caused a fluid leakage that led to an "underground blowout."

Lapindo noticed too late that an influx of water or gas entered the well after the drill was removed for the night, Davies said, adding "it is quite clear" the critical pressure was "more than the hole could withstand."

Michael Manga, a University of California researcher who authored the part of the report on the quake's impact, said while earthquakes can trigger eruptions, this one "was simply too small and too far away."

Lapindo could not immediately be contacted Tuesday for comment on the report.

The government has made many attempts to contain or stop the mud, which is coming out at a rate of up to 3.5 million cubic feet a day, including dropping beach ball-sized concrete balls into its mouth and building dams to channel the sludge to sea.

But it continues to wreak havoc, swallowing at least a dozen villages and displacing up to 30,000 people. The government estimates the eruption will cause $844 million in damage and has ordered Lapindo to pay half that, with some of the money going toward compensating victims.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Source: http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1394&Itemid=31

Indonesia?s Big Muddy
Lisa Murray
22 August 2008

Villagers are still neck-deep in never-ending mud while the company blamed for the disaster evades responsibility

More than two years on, the mud is still flowing in East Java.

It bubbles, hisses and creeps menacingly close to the top of the dam wall hastily built to contain the disaster zone. /B]So far the mud has drowned 14,000 homes, 33 schools, 65 mosques, a major toll road and an orphanage and it keeps coming at the rate of more than 20 Olympic swimming pools every day. So it's hard to believe that Aburizal Bakrie, the powerful government minister whose family owns the company at the center of the mudflow disaster, would be treated like a king by local villagers, but that's exactly what he claimed in a speech last week.[/B]

"If two years ago I came there the people would shout at me," he said. But more recently, "I went there to the new villages, they are kissing my hand."

Geologists, scientists, non-governmental organizations and many victims all blame irresponsible drilling by gas company Lapindo Brantas, a subsidiary of the Bakrie-family owned Energi Mega Perseda, for the disaster. But the company, backed by two court rulings, is insisting the mud volcano, which first erupted on May 29, 2006, was triggered by an earthquake in Yogyakarta, 250 km away.

As if to prove its clean record, it was even cited by the Environment Ministry earlier this month for complying with environmental standards. The award prompted embarrassment from officials and was soundly denounced by environmentalists.

Despite Lapindo's claim of faultlessness, it is paying 4 trillion rupiah (US$437 million) in compensation to villagers who lost their homes to the mudflow. Most people seem to have received 20 per cent of their payment but they are still waiting on the rest.

The compensation is only a fraction of the 26 trillion rupiah that the disaster is estimated to have cost the region. That's just the value of lost assets and doesn't include the disruption to trade and industry caused by destroyed roads, buried farms and thousands of homeless people.

Around the site, the goodwill toward Lapindo that Bakrie describes is nowhere to be seen.

Just four days after his hand-kissing proclamation, a protest by 100 villagers disrupted Independence Day celebrations near the disaster site to demand full payment of the money promised to them. On the walls of a makeshift refugee camp down the road, people have written "Lapindo Detention Centre" and on Tuesday Asia Sentinel witnessed villagers slashing the tires of a Lapindo vehicle at the scene of a new gas leak that had caught fire within meters of surrounding homes.

Gas leaks are increasingly common around the site as the weight of the mud causes the ground to sink and trapped gas makes its way to the surface.

At a small cafe just up the road from the latest leak, the spokesperson for the government's disaster response agency, Badan Pelaksana Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoargo (BPLS), sat chain-smoking clove cigarettes.

It had been a stressful day.

"Emotions heat up and people get angry but they know I am not the person to blame," said Ahmad Zulkarnaen.

He had been called out to Jalan Flamboyan, where another gas leak was on fire and angry villagers had gathered to protest. Their houses sit just outside the official disaster area and so far they don't qualify for compensation.

Almost every day, he is called out to sites like this or he fields complaints from locals about respiratory problems and severe headaches caused by the noxious gas as well as the lack of compensation. BPLS is also charged with protecting locals from new gas leaks, maintaining the dam walls, monitoring the Lapindo payments, using government funds to rebuild infrastructure and overseeing attempts to actually stop the mudflow. So far, four different strategies, including plugging the hole with cement balls, have proven useless. Now the focus is on shipping the mud out to sea via the Porong River.

"The priority now is on social problems," said Zulkarnaen. "Some say the flow can be stopped, some say it cannot. We have tried four ways and they have all failed."

He wouldn't be drawn into the debate about whether the mudflow was caused by Lapindo's drilling mistake or the earthquake in Yogyakarta.

"I'm not qualified to say whether it was a natural disaster or not," he said. "I will leave that to the legal process."

Meanwhile, villagers are left to live with the consequences.

Hadi Wiyanto, who runs the warung or small caf? where Zulkarnaen sought some respite, showed us the bubbling well in the courtyard of his now-abandoned house.

Every now and then water spurts up about half a meter and the smell of gas is overpowering. The house is not in the official mudflow area so his family hasn't received any compensation. No one lives in the house anymore because it's too dangerous but some male family members sleep there to guard the property.

"We have no compensation," Wiyanto said. "There is nothing. It is not safe to live here."

The best can be said is that some locals have made a living out of the disaster.

Iyek, a former factory worker, now ferries tourists, journalists and NGO workers around the site on his motorbike. He has his own tour worked out and keeps up to date on where the biggest leaks cause the mud to bubble and spit water meters into the air. He also sells DVDs about the disaster for 30,000 rupiah each.

Looking over a dried bed of mud, he points to where his factory once stood and also indicates where a famous labor activist was murdered.

But landmarks are fast disappearing. Just a year ago, you could see the rooftops of houses peeking above the mud but now all that is left in this particular area are the tip of a mosque, the top floor of a furniture factory and some dead trees.

Iyek's family has so far been given 24 million rupiah for his house and land that were buried under the mud. He is waiting on another 92 million rupiah that should have been paid in May.

He has gone from earning 750,000 rupiah per month to between 30,000 and 150,000 rupiah per day. So some months he is actually better off. Still, there is plenty of competition, with at least hundreds of other villagers selling DVDs and operating as tour guides.

Other locals have been employed to guard the disaster site.

At one post, there are 18 men standing around in hard hats and gumboots.

Some are standing in groups smoking, others sleeping; none are wearing masks. Two of them break the boredom by racing on big dirt motorbikes along the 200m stretch of road to the main gaseous crater.

A team from the United Nations Environment Program is currently putting the finishing touches to a new report, which will lay out the best disaster response options for Indonesia.

Its main author, John McLachlan-Karr, says the mudflow has started to slow and may even stop some time over the next 10 years. But in the meantime the dam walls built to contain it are too steep and sit on unstable ground, making them almost impossible to maintain.

"There is a plan from the local government to move people out of surrounding areas but so far nothing has been done," he said.

As far as disaster responses go, he says, shipping the mud out to sea via the Porong River is the least costly and least damaging option.

While it's not ideal, because it disrupts the river system and dramatically increases the risk of flooding in nearby Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, it seems to be the best option.

"Compared to the scale of the disaster, this is a relatively small price to pay," he said.

Meanwhile, compensation is only just starting to trickle out to the estimated 75,000 people who have been affected by the disaster.

"Lapindo always imply they give this money for nothing," said Winarko, a volunteer at the environmental group Wahli.

"But that's bullshit. They get ownership of the land and have so far only paid 20 per cent of the price. Every time there's a deadline, they make a public show of paying something. They might pay 20 people something."

There are still 573 families, about 2000 people, living at the refugee camp in Porong market. They sleep in 6m by 4m tents and share 15 toilets. Deliveries of clean water and food have long been stopped.

As many as 10,000 people have lived at the market place over the past two years.

One of its residents, Witanto, says most of the remaining people at the camp haven't received any compensation. They don't have documents proving they owned their land and they fear if they move, they will never receive any money.

Those with documents can apply for a property at the Bakrie-owned Kahuripan Nirwana (Heavenly Life) village housing complex, about half an hour's drive from the mudflow site. The complex has a long drive with manicured gardens and big leaf-shaped sculptures. Rows of almost finished houses line the block but many people don't want to live here because it's too far away from their work and lacks the community feel of their old village streets.

Builders said this week that 4,000 houses would be built but only about a quarter were close to being finished. People submit their applications in a big hall at the front of the complex.

One man, who preferred not to be named, said he was trying to swap the land title for his buried home for one of the new houses in the complex. Not because he wanted to live there but so he could try and sell it rather than wait for the remaining compensation payment.

In his national Independence Day address last week, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said all funds were expected to be disbursed to victims by the end of the year. But locals are skeptical. Who could blame them?

 

[mixin]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

June 26 image from http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/

 

[mixin]

Mud eruption 'caused by drilling'

Mud eruption 'caused by drilling'

The eruption of the Lusi mud volcano in Indonesia was caused by drilling for oil and gas, a meeting of 74 leading geologists has concluded. After debating new evidence at a conference in South Africa, most geologists voted drilling as the cause.

He (Professor Richard Davies, of Durham University in the UK) argues that the 2,500m-deep bore hole ruptured limestone rock, containing pressurised water. As the lower part of the borehole was not protected by casing, this forced water and mud into the rocks surrounding the well.

The well took a huge influx of fluid the day before the eruption, he said, resulting in intolerable pressures, and fractures which propagated until the surface was breached.

"We see the pressure building, then suddenly we see a massive drop at 9.30pm on May 28th - the night before the eruption began.

"This is evidence that a fracture has opened up. It's like a tyre bursting - the pressure inside bleeds away.

Full Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7699672.stm

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Indonesia: Mud volcano may collapse

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/15/asia/mud.php

Driven out by mud in Indonesia
By Seth Mydans
Published: December 15, 2008

RENOKENONGO, Indonesia: Her children insist, so every week or two Lilik Kamina takes them back to their abandoned village to look at the mud.

"Hey, Mom, there's our house, there's the mango tree," she said they shout. But there is nothing to see, only an ocean of mud that has buried this village and a dozen more over the past two and a half years.

The mud erupted here during exploratory drilling for natural gas, and it has grown to be one of the largest mud volcanoes ever to have affected a populated area.

Unlike other disasters that torment Indonesia - earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis - this one continues with no end in sight, and experts say the flow could continue for many years or decades.

The steaming mud keeps bubbling up from under ground, spreading across the countryside, driving people from their homes, burying fields and factories and forcing the relocation of roads, bridges, a railroad line and a major gas pipeline.

As the earth disgorges the mud and the lake grows, the land is sinking by as much as 13 meters, or 42 feet, a year and could subside to depths of more than 140 meters just one hour's drive from Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya, according to Richard Davies, a geologist at Durham University in Britain who specializes in mud volcanoes.

Siti Maimunah, an environmental advocate, said people who live nearby have begun getting sick, with about 46,000 visiting clinics with respiratory problems since the mud eruption.

Siti, who is national coordinator for the Mining Advocacy Network of Indonesia, said the gas that emerges with the mud is toxic and possibly carcinogenic. "We worry that in the next 5 to 10 years people will face a second disaster with health problems," she said.

Various attempts to stem the flow have failed over the years. These have included a scheme to drop hundreds of giant concrete balls into the mouth of the eruption; they simply disappeared without effect. A project to divert some of the mud into the nearby Porong River has raised fears that the buildup of silt on the riverbed could cause severe flooding, possibly in Surabaya itself.

The continuing disaster has become an embarrassment to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who faces a new election next year, with groups of displaced people demonstrating in the distant capital, Jakarta.

Lapindo Brantas, the energy company that was doing the drilling, is indirectly owned by the family of one of Indonesia's richest and most influential men, Aburizal Bakrie, who is a major financial backer of Yudhoyono and serves in his cabinet as coordinating minister for the people's welfare.

The victims say compensation has been slow, with only a portion of promised funds delivered to them. Some 60,000 people have fled their homes and many, like Lilik, now live in nearby shelters and in a marketplace as refugees.

This is a particularly forlorn class of displaced people who mostly fend for themselves because, as victims of what is being called a man-made disaster, they receive little assistance from the government or from international aid agencies.

"So we live without hope," said Ali Mursjid, 25, who was in college studying to be a teacher before the mud volcano made him a pauper. "Nobody is willing to help us."

His village, Besuki, was only partly buried in mud, and it is a ghost town of empty houses and hard, cracked mud where children fly kites and shout to hear their voices echo.

This was a prosperous middle-class village, Mursjid said, where families like his hired laborers to work their fields. Now, he said, he and other residents had been reduced to begging.

"I felt so humiliated and embarrassed," Mursjid said. "But I had to beg because none of us had any food to eat. We took turns begging and shared the money."

The steaming mud erupted from the ground on May 29, 2006, as Lapindo, the energy company, was drilling near the industrial district of Sidoarjo. Its tunnel pierced a pressurized aquifer some 3,000 meters underground.

Experts on mud volcanoes say it was the drilling and inadequate safeguards in the bore hole that triggered the eruption of water, gas and mud that continues to flow, at about 100,000 cubic meters, or 3.5 million cubic feet, a day.

Lapindo insists that it was itself a victim, blaming vibrations from a major earthquake that struck two days earlier with an epicenter 300 kilometers, or 190 miles, away.

After listening to new evidence about the eruption, a conference in October of 74 petroleum geologists in Cape Town concluded that the drilling was the cause.

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"There is no question, the pressures in the well went way beyond what it could tolerate - and it triggered the mud volcano," said Susila Lusiaga, a drilling engineer who was part of the Indonesian investigation team, according to a report on the conference by Durham University.

The debate over responsibility has severely limited the payments, said Elfian Effendi, executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, an environmental advocacy group.

After paying out 20 percent of a promised compensation package, Lapindo agreed this month to begin monthly payments equal to $2,500 to 8,000 families it said were eligible. But as part of the Bakrie holdings, Lapindo has been severely affected by the current economic downturn, and some experts question whether the full amount will ever be paid.

Since the first eruption in May 2006, there have been more than 90 others, most of them small but some explosive, said Jim Schiller, a political scientist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who has published a study of the disaster.

He described what he called the horror-movie progress of the mud, which continues to burst from the ground at unexpected times and places. "I've got pictures of them popping up in people's living rooms," he said.

The village of Renokenongo was buried during the biggest of these eruptions, in November 2007, when the weight of sinking earth burst a major natural-gas pipeline, killing 13 workers and sending a fireball into the sky.

"It was so big and so tall that I couldn't believe it was just fire," said Sukono, 40, who owned land and livestock and rented out farm machinery but now is jobless. "I thought it was the end of the world. It was so bright I thought the sun was rising in the west."

In the year since then, said Sukono, who has only one name, he and his family had struggled to accept the obliteration of their home and village. Their past is buried in the mud, and their future seems empty.

"My sons are traumatized," he said. "They say, 'Can't we live like we used to, like normal people?' My older boy asks, 'If things keep on like this, what will happen to my dreams?'

"I answer that I am optimistic," he said. "As a parent I have to be optimistic. I tell him I will help him achieve his dreams. But for me, I don't know."

Lilik, 30, who teaches kindergarten, said the visits to the levee by her former village calm her children, Icha Noviyanti, 11, and Fiqhi Izzudin, 5.

"People say its not a good idea to take the children there, but I think the opposite," she said. "I think it's very important for them to see their home and express their anger. They throw rocks at the mud and shout, 'Lapindo!"'