Mud flood threatens Java residents

Earth News: Indonesia
Aug, 2006
Thousands of people on the Indonesian island of Java have been forced from their homes by tonnes of hot mud and gas.
The sludge, which has been spewing out of the ground for more than two months, is the result of a crack in a gas drilling project near Indonesia's second city, Surabaya.
In a sign of growing international concern over the disaster, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the affected area of Sidoarjo last week.
But despite attempts by government officials and the company involved, so far nothing has managed to contain the flow.
The mud now covers around 20 square kilometres. Climb up a bank of earth at the outskirts of Shiring village and you see it - a lake of mud stretching for kilometre after kilometre.
A white plume of gas marks the spot where it all started; a crack in the earth spewing out steaming sludge.
You can count the rooftops floating in the mud - marking out factories and schools. And you can imagine the things you cannot see - the homes, the rice paddies, the furniture, the toys: whole lives buried; their owners gone, forced to run for higher ground.