29/09/06

Engineers try to halt Indonesia’s giant mudflow

Copyright: Wikipedia

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Engineers try to halt Indonesia’s giant mudflow</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>Engineers are striving to halt an unprecedented mudflow that is inundating villages and has already made more than 10,000 people homeless on the Indonesian island of Java.</P><br />
<P>The mud geyser near the coastal city of Sidoarjo began on 29 May, and appears to have been caused by a gas drilling accident that breached a deep, pressurised reservoir of hot water and steam.</P><br />
<P>As the water rises to the surface it erodes a layer of clay, releasing 50,000 cubic metres of mud — enough to fill roughly 20 Olympic swimming pools — every day.</P><br />
<P>An emergency drilling crew last week started to drill two relief wells around the original one and pump them full of high-density mud to plug the leak.</P><br />
<P>Drilling experts are confident that the leak will be plugged by late November.</P><br />
<P>Meanwhile, the mud has swamped local paddy fields, shrimp farms and factories, but the alternative that local officials are considering — diverting the mud flow to a local river — could spell disaster for fisheries.</P><br />
<P><a  href="/sci.cfm?redir=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5795/1865?ijkey=2t1Y4uXR91qIE&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full article in Science</A> </P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/engineers-try-to-halt-indonesias-giant-mudflow-seaap/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/news/engineers-try-to-halt-indonesias-giant-mudflow-seaap/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Engineers are striving to halt an unprecedented mudflow that is inundating villages and has already made more than 10,000 people homeless on the Indonesian island of Java.

The mud geyser near the coastal city of Sidoarjo began on 29 May, and appears to have been caused by a gas drilling accident that breached a deep, pressurised reservoir of hot water and steam.

As the water rises to the surface it erodes a layer of clay, releasing 50,000 cubic metres of mud — enough to fill roughly 20 Olympic swimming pools — every day.

An emergency drilling crew last week started to drill two relief wells around the original one and pump them full of high-density mud to plug the leak.

Drilling experts are confident that the leak will be plugged by late November.

Meanwhile, the mud has swamped local paddy fields, shrimp farms and factories, but the alternative that local officials are considering — diverting the mud flow to a local river — could spell disaster for fisheries.

Link to full article in Science