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.
Source : AntaraNews