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Humanitarian disaster in Indonesia

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:32 am
by Michelle
A company partly Australian owned has caused what is potentially the worlds worst ecological and environmental disaster ever. The company had been mining for what they had assumed to be a gas pocket only to discover they had in fact hit a pocket of pressurized steaming mud. The incident which occurred nearly four months ago has already destroyed villages and displaced thousand. Indonesians are currently refugees in their own country with many people being forced to evacuate as mud swallows up their homes.

Authorities are desperately trying to stop the mud escaping before the monsoon season which will approach normally in about November. So far all efforts to seal the leak have failed. The economic cost so far has run into the millions.