Jakarta 20/2/2007 (Kominfo-Newsroom) – In the tackling of the Lapindo mud calamity, humans are more important than marine habitat. This means that the sea of mud, which has swallowed 4-5 villages, should be dumped iuto the sea or Porong river, said Prof. Said D.Jenie, head of the Technology Study and Application (BPPT).
The most important thing to settle the Lapindo hot mud mishap, which started on May 29, 2006 and might go on for 31 years, is to channel, without delay, the sea of mud into the sea, regardless of the fact that marine life could be negatively affected, he said during a break at an International Geology Workshop on the 9-month old Sidoarjo Lapindo Hot Mud case here Tuesday (20/2).
The Sidoarjo/Lapindo case is a natural disaster involving a mud volcano. It is pheonomenon that, according to geologists, could not be stopped just like that. Some predict that the mud will not stop spurting into the air for more than 30 years. Its depth has been estimated at hundreds or even more than 4,000 km.
What should immediately be done now is to stop the flow of mud so that it would not swallow more than the five that were already completely inundated.
Dr Yusuf Surachman Djajadihardja, director of the Natural Resources Inventory Technology Center, BPPT, said the hot mud case is a rare natural phenomenon, a combination of techtonics and (oil) drilling. That’s why the mud explosion will go on for tens of years.
“We cannot say who is resposible when two things took place at the same time,” he added. (T./toeb/ton)
