The Indonesians are sighing a breath of relief for the first time in more than nine months since the eruption of a volcano started. An Indonesian “mud volcano” has been spewing toxic sludge for long nine months, displacing 15,000 people in the process. Even though, it seems to have stopped briefly, t is a huge relief for the habitants.
Trying to plug the flow, Rudi Novrianto, a spokesman for the government team said,
The flow of mud coming out of the crater suddenly stopped for about 30 minutes shortly before noon on Monday.
None of our team members knows for sure what happened and we are still trying to determine how it happened.
The steaming crater is located near Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya. It has been found to have merely bubbled during the pause. The mud hole began spewing sludge in May, and it was since then the first time, this temporary hiatus has occurred.
According to Kompas newspaper, Bagus Endar Bachtiar Nurhandoko, an official from the team battling the crater said,
The pause was probably unrelated to the hundreds of chains already dropped into the mud hole.
To slow down the flow of the volcano, Indonesian experts are dropping chains of heavy concrete balls into the funnel. It perhaps will come up as a bold plan, though some say it will not work.
Photo Credit: AP/Trisnad