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Mud, gas and boiling water that have been gushing out of the ground in east Java since May, submerging half a dozen villages and 20 factories, could continue for a century with “catastrophic consequences”, European experts said.
Efforts to seal the channels through which the mud is escaping are unlikely to succeed, and it is impossible to tell how much fluid remains underground, according to a University of Oslo geology team.
“It’s unlikely to stop permanently for a long time,” Adriano Mazzini told a Press conference in Jakarta. “It’s hard to say when the overpressure will have been fully released. It could be one, 10 or 100 years. But to seal it will be very, very difficult.” According to Mazzini, unless the flow stops soon, the affected land, which has already starting sinking, could subside significantly. “It will be catastrophic,” he said.
The mud started flowing on May 29, a couple of hundred metres from where the gas company PT Lapindo Brantas was drilling an exploratory well nearly two miles deep. It has been gushing up to 50,000 cubic metres a day ever since.
At least four villages will almost certainly have to be destroyed, and two others have been flooded. More than 11,000 people have evacuated their homes.
— The Guardian
John Aglionby
