Police blame mining firm for Indonesian "mud volcano"

KODE PPC ANDA

A police probe into the cause of the "mud volcano" that has made 15,000 people homeless in Indonesia's East Java, points to negligence by a mining company, reports said Sunday.

Mud began to flow out of a gas exploratory drilling well operated by Pt Lapindo Brantas in Sidoarjo, East Java in May 2006.

The mud has since flooded some 600 hectares (1,500 acres) of land and submerged whole villages.

"All depositions by experts say that there is a correlation between the mudflow and the activities of the Lapindo exploratory well.

"Therefore, according to police investigations, there is clearly a link between the Lapindo well and the mud outflow," East Java Police Chief Herman Suryadi Sumawiredja said, according to the Kompas newspaper.

Speaking on Saturday, Suryadi said that the police have questioned eight experts over the cause of the outflow dubbed the "mud volcano."

The probe concluded that the mud had began to break out to the surface because of negligence by PT Lapindo Brantas during drilling at the well, but Suryadi gave no further details.

The police have declared 13 people as suspects in the case, all of whom are executives of Pt Lapindo Brantas or field workers. Their indictments were still being prepared.

Kompas also quoted the head of the Indonesian Geologists Association, Andang Bachtiar, as saying that Lapindo's use of mud to offset fluid coming out from the well was of a wrong density and caused the shaft to crack.

Rudi Rubiandini, an oil and gas expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology, said that the company had used the regulatory steel casing to drill the well only up to a depth of 3,600 feet and dispensed with its use for the remaining 5,700 feet.

Meanwhile in Sidorarjo, efforts to curb the mud outflow by dropping chains of concrete balls down the main mud crater remained hampered by heavy rains.

"Because of the rains in the past few days, we have been unable to resume our operations," said Satria Bijaksana, an expert from the Bandung Institute, who devised the audacious plan.

Bijaksana told AFP that the rains had made access dangerous for the heavy machinery used in dropping the chains, each of which links four concrete balls.

A total of 374 such chains have been dropped in the first phase that ended earlier this month and another 500 strings are expected to be inserted in the current phase.

AFP

KODE PPC ANDA