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Concrete balls to plug 'mud volcano'
(on picture)
A
Indonesian village near Surabaya, in East Java, destroyed by
mud pouring out of an gas well since May last year. In a
desperate effort to stop the flow, a government team will
attempt to plug the gushing mud volcano with hundreds of
concrete balls.
JAKARTA: Hundreds of concrete balls will be dropped into an
Indonesian 'mud volcano' in a desperate attempt to slow its
massive outpouring of steaming mud. But experts warned the
balls are unlikely to stop the flow, which has swallowed
villages and left 15,000 people homeless.
The attempt, originally scheduled to take place today (21st February 2007), has
been postponed. "We are still not ready with all the necessary
preparations, and now it looks like the operation will only be
possible on Friday at the earliest," said Rudi Novrianto,
spokesman for the government team handling the crisis.
According to Novrianto, the crane that will lower the balls
into the gushing fissure is not yet in place. But, he said,
"We hope the balls can slow down the flow by between 50 and 70
percent."
The 'volcano' is in fact a natural gas well near Surabaya,
in East Java that has run into some diffuculties. In May 2006,
the well, operated by local prospector PT Lapindo Brantas,
began to spew steaming mud and water during routine drilling.
Initially, the company plugged the hole by pumping it full
of a mixture of mud and cement, but soon the mud burst from
cracks in the ground around the borehole. In the intervening
months, the mudflow, growing in volume by thousands of cubic
metres per day, has submerged villages, factories and fields.
After the failure of the mud and cement plug, various ideas
on how to stop the flow and divert the mud into a nearby river
were tried, all unsuccessfully.
The advancing sea of mud is now threatening to swamp a key
railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.
The Indonesian Antara news agency reported recently that 2,000
of the high-density concrete balls had been ordered from the
Bandung Institute of Technology, on Java, after its physics
experts came up with the new plan to stem the mudflow. The
balls are to be linked into 375 chains weighing between 400
and 500 kilograms each.
Originally scheduled to take place for two weeks ago but
now twice delayed, the plan has not convinced all sceptics
that it will fare better. "The effort is useless. It will not
solve the problem," said geologist Edi Sunardi, from the
University of Padjadjaran, also in Bandung.
"They assume that the flow comes from a hole, but we're
looking at a plane, and you cannot plug such a plane with
concrete balls," said Sunardi, explaining that the strong
pressure may even push the balls back up to the surface. He
said the only option was to quickly channel the mud to the sea
before it dried out.
Welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie claimed last month that
the flow was a "natural disaster" unrelated to the drilling
activities of Lapindo, which belongs to a group controlled by
his family. However, a study by British experts said the
eruption was most likely caused by drilling for gas.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has already ordered
Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (A$534 million) in
compensation and costs related to the disaster.
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