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Indonesian Mud Volcano Might Be Calming Down
Jakarta (AFP) March 12, 2007 An attempt to plug an Indonesian "mud volcano" with concrete balls has managed to calm it, an expert said Monday, nine months after the crater began oozing sludge that displaced 15,000 people. "If you ask me, it appears calmer, but that is a subjective view," said Satria Bijaksana from Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, which devised the plan to slow the disastrous mudflow. The Bandung team was trying to devise a more objective way of evaluating the effectiveness of the concrete balls, the physicist added. Workers at the crater near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya aim to staunch the toxic flow by 50-70 percent by dropping chains of heavy concrete balls into the funnel. Some experts say the audacious but experimental plan has little chance of success. The crater has consumed more than 220 chains from an initial target of 374 and is still spewing steaming mud. Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week instructed the effort to continue for another month. The government expects to spend around 370 million dollars tackling the phenomenon. The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May after exploratory drilling at the site by local gas firm PT Lapindo Brantas. The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,482 acres), including many homes, and threatens to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone. Experts are unsure how long the crater will spew mud if left unchecked, with some suggesting it could be years.
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Bring Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes A world of storm and tempest
Advanced Technology Peers Deep Inside Hurricanes
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Mar 07, 2007Determined to understand why some storms grow into hurricanes while others fizzle, NASA scientists recently looked deep into thunderstorms off the African coast using satellites and airplanes. During July and August 2006, a team of international scientists, including NASA researchers, journeyed to the west coast of Africa. |
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