More Mud News

Man, I love this story. You may remember a previous post of mine back in early February on the mud volcano in Indonesia that was inadvertently created by morons drilling for natural gas. So far, waves of stinking, scalding, liquefied mud have engulfed four villages, a road, numerous factories, a railway, and forced the evacuation of 15,000 people, plus 12 deaths. Attempts to divert the mud failed miserably. In late February, I reported that the Indonesian authorities were going to try to plug the volcano with giant concrete balls, despite warnings from local geologists that it would be vain attempts. They’ve been trying that approach, and, of course, the concrete balls have made no difference at all.

So now they have been attempting to stem the flow with giant chains, as well as balls, thinking they could create some sort of “mesh” network. Again, local geologists have scoffed at the idea, mainly because no one has any idea what the topology of the flow is like “down there” or whether a “mesh” would make any difference:

http://www.physorg.com/news94797482.html

So far, there’s been no real difference. The good news, though, is that the volcano stopped spewing mud for about half an hour at one point, suggesting that it may wind up plugging itself. They called it “coughing”.

I’d call it wishful thinking.

Man versus Nature. Eventually, Nature always gets her way, and sometimes she gets revenge. She can be a cold, cold bitch. Apparently, she can also be hot and spewing....

Update (8/8/07): Studies have shown conclusively that the volcano was formed by the drilling and not by an earthquake. See this recent post: http://angrylabrat.blogspot.com/2007/08/yep-still-due-to-morons.html