The Last Bastion of the Lapindo Mudflow

On Friday two weeks ago, the gush of underground mud in Porong, Sidoarjo, some 200 meters from the Banjar Panji I gas exploration well owned by PT Lapindo Brantas, was exactly three years old. Fifty thousand people in 12 villages were rendered homeless by the disaster. This could be only the beginning of the tragedy. In March, a ring dam surrounding the source of mud collapsed as the earth beneath subsided. A daily flow of 100,000 cubic meters of mud is now directly impacting the external dam as the only dividing wall between 64 million cubic meters of mud and settlements. If this 3-meter-wide fortress gives way, a calamity like that in Situ Gintung, Tangerang, may recur.