Indonesian mudflow victims pray for relief

Around 2,000 Indonesians whose homes were submerged by a gushing mud volcano prayed for relief from the torrent yesterday on the first anniversary of a disaster that shows no sign of abating.

Dressed in white, the victims packed into a soccer stadium dotted with banners to listen to a sermon blaring from loudspeakers as four giant video screens ran pictures of the mudflow throughout the three-hour ceremony.

"I don't have the strength any more to cope with this," said Jarot, a 73-year-old woman whose home was engulfed by the noxious-smelling hot mud that has defied all efforts to stop it since it started on an oil drilling site on Java island. "I have stopped pleading with the government and Lapindo; now I only plead to God."

PT Lapindo Brantas is the operator of the oil well from where the mud has been flowing.

Jarot, who goes by one name like many Indonesians, is one of some 15,000 people facing an uncertain future since being forced out of their homes when the mud began flowing from a drilling site in Sidoarjo, near Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya.

The government has tried several schemes to halt the flow, including dropping giant concrete balls into the crater, but the hot mud still spurts at a rate of 148,000 cubic metres a day.

With an area four times the size of Monaco now under mud, some 6,000 families are living in makeshift plastic shelters in a nearby vacant market.

They have little clean water, space is cramped and the smell of stale food fills the air -- but they don't know where to go.

"At first we were told we would be compensated, but it turns out we won't get anything," said Zubaida, a 44-year-old whose house and fruit stall have been swamped by the mudflow.

Compensation

Lapindo had been ordered by the government to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah (US$434.8 million) to victims and for efforts to halt the flow, but officials say the cost could be double that.

Lapindo and PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk, which indirectly controls Lapindo, dispute that the disaster was caused by drilling and also whether Lapindo alone should bear the cost.

Energi is owned by the Bakrie Group, controlled by the family of Indonesia's chief social welfare minister, Aburizal Bakrie.

So far 13 people have been investigated over the disaster, but no one has been prosecuted.

A permanent mudflow team set up by the government says it will build new dams and strengthen existing one, but some experts say the mudflow could continue for decades.

"I am very sad and embarrassed. I live here like a homeless person," said Melia Prihatiningsih, who recently gave birth to a baby girl at the camp.

Victims of the mud volcano yesterday prepared to march from makeshift camps where they have been sheltering to the outskirts of the volcano site, one resident said.

"We plan to march in solidarity with other victims of the mudflow on the anniversary," resident Ipung Nizar said.

Several thousand victims are also expected to gather in a newly built market near the volcano, where many have been sheltering after refusing an initial compensation offer from Lapindo.

"Around 2,000 residents will gather at the new market and reflect on our condition one year after the incident started," resident Bambang Wooryantoyo said.

In Jakarta, several hundred victims and activists were expected to march through the streets to demand an end to the disaster.