National Geographic Magazine Indonesia Sidoarjo Mud Disaster

I found this article after visiting East Java, Indonesia in May 2008. Had visited the area and saw the disaster area, still devastated and in ruins even after 2 years. Took some photos of the area which you can view here.

Published: National Geographic Magazine January 2008 The Unstoppable Mud : Drowning in Mud
An unnatural disaster erupts with no end in sight.
By Andrew Marshall

By dawn, the trickle that began to seep into the neighborhood during the night had become a scalding torrent. Mud surged into the modest house belonging to Sumitro, who manages a store in the Porong District of East Java. As it smothered furniture and filled rooms, Sumitro and Indayani, his wife, grabbed the kids and fled. “I knew the mud couldn’t be stopped,” he says. “My house was doomed.”

Months later, a plume of steam drifting above a landscape of submerged houses marks the source of his woes: a mud volcano—its cause a source of some controversy. Many blame a company drilling for gas; others claim an earthquake was the trigger. Lusi, as Indonesians call the mudflow, is one of the more bizarre expressions of Indonesia’s geologic turmoil. Since May 2006, it has spewed millions of barrels of heated sludge, blanketing an area twice the size of New York City’s Central Park. Villages have disappeared under the mud, 60 feet (18 meters) deep in places, and 10,000 families have been forced from their homes. So far, according to an IMF estimate, the catastrophe has cost Indonesia 3.7 billion dollars—nearly one percent of its GDP—and triggered spasms of blame and denial. This being Indonesia, it has also prompted appeals to the supernatural.

Lusi—a nickname derived by combining the Indonesian word for mud (lumpur) with Sidoarjo, the name of the nearby town—could go on erupting for decades. Meanwhile, trucks and backhoes work relentlessly to contain the damage, fortifying dikes against the 600,000 barrels of mud that continue to surge out each day. Pipes disgorge the sludge into the Porong River; theoretically, rain will wash it to sea—if it doesn’t choke the river and flood nearby Surabaya, a city of 2.5 million.

With the mud came the mystics—Sumatran witch doctors, Balinese Hindu priests, and a celebrity soothsayer, Mama Lauren—claiming they could stop the deluge. Believers tossed goats, geese, and monkeys into the mud to appease the dragon supposedly disturbed by drilling. A wealthy local offered a house to anyone who could halt the mud. First, however, applicants had to prove their powers could stop a tap from dripping. It didn’t happen.

Wary of mystics, weary of mud, Sumitro is short on optimism. “Nothing can stop it,” he says. “Not technology, not the supernatural.”

A dike protected Sumitro’s neighborhood until November 2006, when the mud caused a gas pipeline to explode, killing 13 people. “I thought the end of the world had come,” he recalls.

In a way, it had. The explosion weakened the dike, exposing his neighborhood to the flow. Now, footprints of fleeing residents are baked into the mud of empty streets. Scavengers have stripped homes of roof tiles and wiring. The stink of sulfur hangs in the air. “Nothing left now,” Sumitro says. “Only memories.” The politics surrounding the disaster are as muddy as the landscape. PT Lapindo Brantas, the company that operated the ill-fated well, is partly owned by the family of Aburizal Bakrie, Indonesia’s chief welfare minister. Bakrie, a billionaire, says the well had nothing to do with the catastrophe; he blames it on a powerful earthquake that struck Yogyakarta, 170 miles (270 kilometers) away, two days before the mud flood. He has yet to visit Lusi’s victims. Just as well. Anger pervades a market where thousands of displaced villagers encamp. “If Bakrie comes here,” one man says, slowly drawing his finger across his throat. Still, Bakrie enjoys the backing of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who may run again in 2009 and apparently opts not to alienate a fat-cat cabinet member by demanding his resignation.

The Indonesian government ordered Lapindo to pay more than 400 million dollars in compensation. But the money has been slow in coming; Sumitro, chief negotiator for 800 families, believes the company is stalling.

Not so, says a spokesperson for Lapindo. She explains compensation is delayed because claimants cannot provide adequate proof of home or land ownership, and maintains the company has already spent millions to house and feed victims. Claims will be fully paid within two years, she promises, adding that Lapindo has no legal obligation because the disaster’s cause remains unproven. “We don’t know yet whether this is our fault,” she says.

One study by an international team that included a Lapindo employee supported Bakrie’s claim that the earthquake caused the mess. But Richard Davies of Durham University in England is dismissive. “One, the earthquake wasn’t big enough and was too far away,” he says. “Two, we have pretty good evidence for how drilling would have caused this incident.”

Davies’ own studies concluded the eruption was triggered by the drilling and the attempt to control a huge influx of water and gas that fractured sections of the borehole.

An attempt to plug the hole with thousands of concrete balls failed last year. Now Soenarso, chief of the Sidoarjo Mudflow Mitigation Agency, is out of ideas for halting the flow. “I can only say it is in the hands of God Almighty,” he told the Jakarta Post.

But Lusi isn’t finished. Torrential rains could erode dikes, releasing more mud, displacing more people. Whatever happens, one fact remains: for Lusi’s victims, Lapindo’s name is mud.

© 2008 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

Sidoardjo Mud Volcano Disaster

On 28 May 2006, an industrial gas drilling company initated a torrential hot volcanic mudflow which would inundate villages and rice paddies, displacing more than 11,000 people from eight villages in the Porong district, Sidoardjo.

Families and factories as well as farms had to be relocated as the land was deem unsafe. Since then, there were more gas explosions, hot muds exploding as far as 5km unexpectedly. According to the geologists the mud volcano was collasping in its own weight

Two years on my June 2008 travels, when we visited the place briefly, there were some industrial work going on, probably related to the gas exploration works since the gas pipelines were still in operations.

As far as my eyes could see, the ruined villages were still covered by the mud, nothing has yet to be done to the area. Some people were still living in tents and have turned to begging in the streets.

The price of living next to an active volcano, the volcano exploded into a large caldera of hot mud

Many houses in the villages were destroyed by the mud and gas explosions. Two years on, nothing has been done

There were quite a few people in the streets asking for money, some still lived in makeshift tents

The active caldera still releasing hot vapour gaseous.

Hot mud and water flows, some works are still being done to divert the hot mud safely

I found a national geographic article which would give you more details of the whole situation. You can read it here.

Photo series of a Sulphur Miner

These slags of sulphur are look deceivingly light, but highly densed in masses, each basket would weigh an average of 80kg.
If you do visit the place, go in the early morning, before sunrise, you will get to see the miners carrying their torches. The weather is much gentler and you probably could see the crater before it gets covered by the fumes.
We only got to volcano after 8am, by then, the turquoise blue lake was covered.

Sulphur Miners of Mount Ijen

June 2008

Mount Ijen, Banyuwangi, East Java

It takes 1.5hours to climb down to the base of the crater. I gave up halfway, the sulphur dioxide fumes proved too piercing to my lungs and eyes. My throat was sore for the whole day after only spending few hours up the volcano.

It is amazing how these sulphur miners carry their heavy 80-100kg load of sulphur up and down the crater and breathing and working in unbearable conditions filled with sulphur dioxide fumes. The visibility was quite limited and only every once in while does it clear a little to reveal a few moments of the lake.

Many of these miners worked til their late forties, it was one of the better paying jobs in the impoverished region. Each of them start making their ascent up the volcano in the dark, a few hours before dawn and ending their work just before sunset. Its tough work but for many of them, this is the only way to feed their familes.

Base of the crater, every or so moment, it clears a little to reveal the base of the crater. This is where the miners work, breaking up pieces of sulphur.

Nothing lives up here, even the trees died, poisoned by the lethal fumes of sulphur dioxide.

Where the wind blows across the top of the rim, it becomes unbearable and almost unbreathable. The miners have no more than their clothes to cover their mouths, little use to protect them from the accumlative toxic fumes. Most of them would not live past their 50s.

A miner making his way up the ardous rim from the base of the crater, carrying an average load of 80-100kg. Climbing down the rim and ascending up the rim is dangerous enough, not to mention carrying beyond human weights.

Midway down the outer volcano, a young miner checks the weight of his load. He gets his money based on the amount of sulphur he brings down.

The weighing station in the middle of the volcano route. This is where some of the sulphur is collected and weighed before making its way down to the main collection office.

Each Miner has his own load of sulphur. He collects and gathers his baskets of the sulphur up from the crater rim before making the steep descent down the hill.

It is amazing how these miners could carry loads than more than double their body weights.

Visiting Mount Ijen, the sulphur volcano

Such a beautiful and surreal place. It took some patience taking this image. The wind would blow in my direction covering the whole place with the odourous fumes. Only every now and then does the torquiose lake reveals itself for a few seconds before covering it again with the sulphur smoke.

Its only a 3km accent up and yet took me an incredible 2 hours to climb up! Oh How unfit am I!


The Mined Sulphur on closeup.

Sulphur miners in the fume covered crater.

Finally I reached the crater rim, only to be greeted by this post telling me that there is more to climb if you can withstand the throat burning sulphur dioxide fumes, you could walk up the top of the volcano, or descent to the base of the crater which would take you another 1.5 hours.

Amazing surrealist landscape which looks almosts alien and breathtakingly beautiful.