[nasional_list] [ppiindia] The Gray Ooze That Ate the Indonesian Villages

From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 01:06:36 +0200

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The Gray Ooze That Ate the Indonesian Villages
By Joel Rubin and Dinda Jouhana, Times Staff Writers
September 9, 2006

SIDOARJO, Indonesia - Nothing, it seems, can stop the mud.

For more than three months, the hot, noxious goop has spewed up through a crack
in the earth at a natural-gas exploration site, swamping everything in its path.

The expanding, surreal gray lake with the stench of rotten eggs has enveloped
more than 10 square miles of land in eastern Java, Indonesia's most densely
populated island. The flow has forced 8,000 to 10,000 people from their homes,
engulfed about a dozen factories, contaminated fish farms and intermittently
closed a major highway.

Confusion has reigned over how to stop it. An effort to drill a series of
relief wells was slow to begin and has thus far failed. With the mud continuing
to gush, emergency crews have scrambled to put up earthen barriers to contain
and redirect the flow away from villages. Some of the dams already have been
breached, and officials are running out of space.

In a country reeling from a string of natural disasters, this man-made fiasco
has thrown a fresh, harsh light on an overwhelmed government struggling to
counter accusations of corruption and ineptitude.

Nerves have frayed over the slow and uneven response to the crisis by
government agencies and Lapindo Brantas, the politically connected company with
a controlling stake in the exploration project. Frustration spilled over last
week when displaced villagers set fire to a camp of tents used by Lapindo
workers.

Suyati, who, like many Indonesians, uses one name, watched anxiously for weeks
as one of the barriers held the mud at bay - temporarily.

"It flew very fast, like a tsunami," said Suyati, 57, recalling the day last
month when the pent-up mud surged though the barrier.

"I was scared and I ran with my sick husband. My son and I had to carry him,
because my husband is paralyzed. The mud was behind us.. It was hot and smelled
very bad. We ran to the mosque, but the mud was very fast. All of a sudden it
was up to my waist."

It is unclear what went wrong during the drilling of a 2-mile-deep exploration
well. Several environmental and community groups have accused the company of
shoddy work and lax oversight, saying a protective lining that could have
prevented the disaster was not properly in place.

Company officials initially suggested the mudflow had resulted from an
earthquake days before, but quickly abandoned the idea.

The company has since taken responsibility for the damage but won't say what
caused it, citing a police investigation.

The disaster, and the government's inability to cope with it, have angered
residents. Their frustration has deepened with reports that Aburizal Bakrie,
the government minister responsible for coordinating responses to natural and
man-made disasters, owns a stake in the gas exploration project.

Adang Setiana, a deputy to Bakrie, said the government's response had not been
influenced by the minister's connections. Bakrie is one of the country's
wealthiest men.

At the shore of the mud lake, white smoke billows ominously. Large bubbles burp
at the center, marking the roughly 50-foot-wide crack, where temperatures reach
about 140 degrees. Only rooftops and the tips of denuded trees poke above the
surface of the mud, which is 20 feet deep in places.

Tests have found elevated levels of phenol, which can irritate human skin and
cause breathing discomfort, according to a report by WALHI, a leading
environmental group. There have been no reports of hospitalizations, although
two people have died in accidents related to the mudflow: an emergency crew
member reportedly caught in an explosion of a pent-up gas deposit and another
run over by a bulldozer.

Most of the people whose houses have been inundated have taken refuge in the
dreary storefronts of a recently built market, uncertain whether they will be
able to return home.

On a recent sweltering afternoon, a neighbor of Suyati's, Rois Haryanto, was
trying to clear knee-high mud from his front yard while four young men he had
hired worked inside. On the white wall of his home, Haryanto, 47, had scrawled,
"Beware of Lapindo's henchmen."

"I saw them on TV promising that they will reimburse everything, every little
thing," he said angrily. "They promised that. That is why I still live here,
with the mud. I don't want to go to the [market]. This is my house, and I want
them to see that."

Rawindra, a regional manager for Lapindo, said the company had been paying
displaced residents about $35 a month for living expenses, while also offering
about $550 to families to cover two years' rent and to purchase their homes
from them. Many villagers, however, are reluctant to abandon the idea of going
home.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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[nasional_list] [ppiindia] The Gray Ooze That Ate the Indonesian Villages

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