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Lapindo

By Duncan Graham - posted Thursday, 26 May 2011


More responsible administrations would have rapidly sealed off the zone, relocated residents and then taken over the investigation and repair work. An independent judicial inquiry should have been held. Instead there have been piecemeal solutions and much blame shifting.

The company claimed the cause was subterranean fractures cause by a shallow 6.3 earthquake two days earlier at Yogyakarta that killed more than 6,000. However the drill site is 280 kilometres distant.

Last year a team of geologists led by Britain's Durham University reported that faulty drilling practices were responsible for the blowout, and that the quake was a coincidence. They said the bore was not properly cased to withstand the pressures known to occur in that area.

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The drillers have rejected these findings. Supreme Court action to determine fault was dismissed and a police investigation ended for "lack of evidence". The government's Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology declared the eruption a natural disaster.

Although Indonesia now purports to be a democracy no political party has seriously tried to make the event a national scandal. Some NGOs have tried, though with little success. The victims are too poor, too disorganised and too far from Jakarta.

At the time of the blowout most of PT Lapindo Brantos was part of the Bakrie Group owned by the family of Aburizal Bakrie, one of the most powerful businessmen and politicians in the Archipelago. He's head of Golkar, the majority party in Parliament supporting the minority Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Then, but not now, he was also Minister for Coordinating Welfare.

Attempts were made to sell PT Lapindo Barantos to an offshore company for $US 2 but this was blocked by the government's Capital Market Supervisory Agency.

This month (May) Sidoarjo's Mudflow Mitigation Agency announced that dykes built to retain the flows are now in danger of collapsing because the ground is slumping under the weight of the mud. Distressing news, but not surprising.

The solution? Water is being pumped into the nearby Porong River but the mud mounts up. More catchment areas are needed for the sediments, but no one wants arsenic-laced silt on their land.

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Should the eruption continue as forecast by 2040 many square kilometres of rich farming land will have been lost and scores more villages abandoned in one of the world's most densely populated regions. Thousands more will have lost their livelihoods.

Indonesians, long used to government failures to take firm steps in natural or man-made disasters, have an acronym for the phenomenon – nato. No action, talk only.

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About the Author

Duncan Graham is a Perth journalist who now lives in Indonesia in winter and New Zealand in summer. He is the author of The People Next Door (University of Western Australia Press) and Doing Business Next Door (Wordstars). He blogs atIndonesia Now.

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All articles by Duncan Graham

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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