Here's a little bit of news from Indonesia.
Have you ever heard of the mud flood? It has affected over 10,000 Indonesians for two years, displacing them from their homes and jobs. It's also affected our travel between Malang and Surabaya (where the international airport is and where we often go for vacation or for meetings). The main highway was flooded soon after the flood started, and from time to time the main road we use now gets cut off by the sludge breaking through the dikes (or because of angry demonstrations that block the already narrow roads). One time last February, it took us six hours to get back to Malang (normally two hours) navigating through windy, mountain roads. On that same day, it took friends of ours eight hours to get back.
So what's the mud flood?
It is a mud volcano that erupted in the middle of a packed community and
"Since May 2006, it has spewed millions of barrels of heated sludge, blanketing an area twice the size of New York City's Central Park. Villages have disappeared under the mud, 60 feet (18 meters) deep in places, and 10,000 families have been forced from their homes." (read the rest of the article from National Geographic here).
This picture posted by the Boston Globe shows the crater of the mud flood. Keep in mind, when this started, this area was all rice fields, communities, factories. The huge dikes you see were not there. They have been man made all around this area to keep the flood at bay. Companies from countries around the world have tried to figure out how to stop it. There is no end in sight.Just today, the Jakarta Post released news that a US company is working on plans to build a geothermal power plant out of the mud flood.
