Indonesian Government - East Java "Mud Volcano" Could Flow For Years - AFP

[hatrack]

It could be years before a massive "mud volcano" which has forced thousands of people to flee their homes stops flowing, Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said on Monday. A gas well near Surabaya in East Java operated by Lapindo Brantas Inc. has spewed steaming mud since May, submerging villages, industries and agricultural land.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared the area a disaster zone after the "mud volcano" inundated more than 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of land in Sidoarjo district and displaced some 13,000 people.

"As I speak, we have not gotten to the stage that we can stop the flow, so what is assigned to my ministry is to try to prevent further destruction...," Witoelar told a Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club lunch. "At this moment, if I'm not mistaken, it's close to 200,000 cubic metres a day, it's beyond any pumps or dykes to be contained," he said of the mud flow.

"It could take years," before it stops, said, adding the victims had to be compensated soon.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2006/061204130553.4at6hjnh.html

[whistle]

1. What about the American corporations which have been exploiting

....Indonesian workers for decades? Can't they send aid?

<snip>
U.S. Corporations Arrive for the Feast
After twenty-five years of fighting the Japanese, the Dutch and the U.S. colonialists, and after having begun a program of virtual expropriation of some of the foreign holdings of Indonesia's natural wealth, the country was again opened to outright colonial exploitation.

The 1965 coup and the subsequent slaughter of the anti-colonialists smoothed the way for many U.S. companies to come back during 1966. But it was not until January 1967 after the generals' clique was firmly consolidated, that the "foreign investments law" was passed. This law opened the door legally, as well as politically and militarily, to the foreign plunderers. It specifically guaranteed all U.S. investors against losses due to "war, revolution or insurrection."

This, of course, was what the coup was really all about. Stories about "natives running amok" and "religious Javanese" being "shocked by Communist atheism" were planted in the cynical U.S. and world imperialist press to cover up what was simply a drive by the U.S. master-butchers to get their plantations, oil wells, banks and mines back -- with interest.

The coup did give them the bonus of political control over a tremendous section of the South Pacific and another wedge into Southeast Asia, and this was fundamental for the long-range interest of U.S. imperialism as a whole. But U.S. big business, which so directly influences Washington, is also noted for its pragmatism -- for keeping its eye on the ball of immediate profit. And there was plenty of profit to be made in Indonesia, once the Sukarno government, the Communists and the revolutionary nationalists were defeated.
<MORE>

http://www.workers.org/indonesia/chap4.html

[Nihil]

2. One thing they could try ...

Find the company responsible for the misplaced well and start offering
sacrifices to the earth god that they've upset ... start with the CEO
then move down in case the god wants quantity rather than quality ...

Let's face it, even if it doesn't stop the volcano it will make a lot
of the people happier!

:evilgrin: