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| Dirty Mess: Children walk through volcanic mud in Monbon village, Indonesia. Manifest efforts to stop the mudflow have failed,
blocking the return of some 16,000 residents. Charism Sayat/AFP/Getty Images |
The strange, slow-motion disaster of the mud volcano
A seemingly unstoppable mud volcano has displaced thousands of Indonesians.
from the November 28, 2007 edition
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Having lost his backyard cigarette factory to the mud, Sunarto is trying to diversify into chicken-rearing. But the closure of a damaged toll road has snarled traffic for miles, putting a damper on his plans.
"The local economy has collapsed. The traffic is out of control. People don't have money to spend, because they've lost their jobs. Even if you want to start a business, there's nobody buying anything," he says.
The disaster has become a political liability for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose hesitant response was complicated by his ties to Minister of Public Welfare Aburizal Bakrie, a prominent businessman whose family-run conglomerate owns Lapindo. Political opponents say that Mr. Bakrie, formerly chief economics minister, only kept his cabinet post in an April reshuffle because he is a financial backer of President Yudhoyono, who faces reelection in 2009.
Whatever the political calculations in Jakarta, disgruntled residents here blame both parties for their plight. A painted banner across an abandoned stretch of toll road in the disaster zone reads "Lapindo + Government = Madness."
The onset of monsoon rains adds urgency to the task of the engineers who must reinforce the levees to prevent the ooze from spreading. "The risk is that the rain will weaken the sandbags [inside the levees], so we need to pump out more mud from the dams," says Mr. Zukarnaen.
Outside the dam, new fissures keep opening up, usually small bubbles of methane gas and water that quickly draw a crowd. As with the big hole, engineers prefer to manage the flows, instead of trying to close them, as this might trigger a bigger explosion elsewhere.
An eventual fix for the mudflow could be years away. In June, Japan offered to lend Indonesia $110 million to build a 130-foot high dam around it. Japanese scientists say that the weight of the exposed mud, once it dried, could act as a lid on the hole, an Indonesian minister said. But a decision on Japan's offer is pending.
Meanwhile, the mud keeps flowing. Sri Mulyani and the other remaining residents of Renonkenongo, a village that was inundated last November, have been ordered to evacuate. Their village will soon be used as a runoff channel.
A mosque still stands on the main road, and Friday prayers draw dozens of sarong-clad worshipers. But most houses are submerged.
"At the beginning, I thought the problem could be fixed … but now I know I will never live here again," says Ms. Mulyani.
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