Constant Muck Flow Plagues East Java

Debate over liability is swirling around a hole in East Java, Indonesia, that has been spewing hot mud non-stop for 10 months and displaced 12,000 people.

Last May, Indonesian oil and gas company Lapindo began drilling a deep exploration shaft 200 yards from where the mud is now belching out, and two days later a deadly earthquake struck Yogyakarta, 175 miles away, Voice of America reported.

Since then the steaming mud has covered an area about 2 square miles, burying 12 villages and driving 12,000 people from their homes.

Some scientists have claimed the drilling opened an over-pressurized aquifer, which blew near the drilling site, but Indonesian Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie disagrees.

According to the experts, it is a truly natural disaster, he said. Can you imagine that about 1 million barrels a day from one hole, and that hole is not the hole that is drilled by Lapindo?

Bakrie’s family owns controlling interest of Lapindo, whose executives and subcontractors are now under criminal investigation, the report said.