Lapindo Mud Flow

Over the weekend I spent about an hour and a half watching a documentary movie written, filmed, and produced by the previous occupants of my office at Ubaya: three undergraduate students investigating a horrible disaster in Sidoarjo. Sidoarjo is not far from Surabaya and I passed through it on my way to Trawas. In 2006 the residents of three villages fled from a sudden flow of hot mud that erupted from the ground. People who were there at the time report that the mud was waist-high within two hours. The mud still continues to flow and its effects are becoming more widespread.

Part of what makes this disaster so heart-wrenching is the Indonesian government's ineffective policies for dealing with the village refugees and for addressing the ongoing flow of mud. An international team of geologists came to Sidoarjo and determined that a large Indonesian company caused the mud eruption by improper drilling procedures while searching for gas. However, the company maintains that the mud flow is a natural disaster, not a man-made one. The company, Lapindo, is owned by the Bakrie family; Aburizal Bakrie is Indonesia's Minister of Welfare. Bakrie was also the largest private contributor to the current president's election campaign. In a culture where networks and saving face are paramount, it's not surprising that the government has largely taken the side of Lapindo.

The government has also chosen what seems to be an extremely unwise, if expedient, method for managing the mud that continues to come out of the ground at Sidoarjo: they are dumping it directly into the Porong river. This has caused ripples of effects in the ecosystem and endangers the livelihood of the river's shrimp farms and fishermen.

I'm horrified and depressed by the magnitude and duration of this disaster and had to vent about it some here. If you'd like to read more, here's a link that has information on both the documentary I just watched and the situation itself: http://www.yale.edu/seas/PClarke.htm