Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – The mudflow saga has shown not the slightest sign of ending soon as another pond broke apart in the early hours of Tuesday, inundating the Surabaya-Gempol turnpike once more and causing it to be temporarily closed.

But the turnpike, where work is ongoing to raise the road, was opened again at 10 a.m. By this time, the mudflow, which has been coming from the Lapindo Brantas Inc. exploration site in Porong district, Sidoarjo, since May 29, had inundated a 500-meter stretch of the road at a depth of 30 centimeters.

Considering the latest situation, and despite preparations to cover the ponds – which were built to contain the mudflows – with geosynthetic material to make them stronger, Indrasurya Mochtar, an expert from the Surabaya Institute of Technology, predicted the worst was yet to come.

"In view of the current situation, I predict that within two weeks to one month, the ponds will break apart and millions of cubic meters of mudflow will spill out, inundating more areas.

"That's why the government should immediately evacuate residents and be certain it's doing all it can to deal with the problem," the head of the institute's civil engineering school told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

If the ponds break apart and the mudflows spread further afield, it is feared they will get into the waterways and reach the sea, without going through a treatment process, with their toxicity posing a serious threat to the marine ecosystem.

The government plans to channel the water from the mudflows into the sea through a 20-meter-long pipe, after it is treated. Work is in progress to fortify the ponds, the walls of which are now more than six meters high.

The former chairman of the Indonesian Geologists Association, Andang Bachtiar, said there was little chance the mudflows could be stopped, as assured by Lapindo's team, as they had exhibited the "mud volcanoes" phenomenon.

The mudflow exploded Friday night, shooting mud 40 meters into the air and injuring two people. "It has to be remembered that the mud volcanoes are caused by Lapindo's negligence. If there was no violation of drilling procedures, there would be no mud volcanoes," he told the Post by phone Tuesday.

Earlier, the mudflow mitigation team had estimated it would be able to stop the mudflows by the end of November or mid-December by constructing a relief well.

In light of recent developments, Ridlo Saiful Ashadi, the director of the East Java chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, said Lapindo was failing to consider all angles of the disaster.

Each day, he said, the mudflows were getting bigger but Lapindo had not taken any preventive measures to protect residents. "It's true, Lapindo has paid compensation but the amount is not nearly enough, considering all those people have gone through," he said.

Sidoarjo Regent Win Hendrarso, whose administration has worked alongside Lapindo to assist affected residents, may be losing his earlier faith in the Lapindo team. He hoped the government could provide a yes-or-no answer to whether the mudflows could be stopped.

"We're confused and waiting for certainty as to whether the mudflows have developed into mud volcanoes. We'll ask the President whether he thinks it necessary to evacuate the residents," he said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mudflow victims in Besuki, Goninjo and Babatan Jabon villages in Sidoarjo have started to itemize their lost belongings, posting their lists at the technology institute in the hope of getting compensation from Lapindo.

The institute's head of surveys and registration, Agnes Tuti Rumiati, said residents had started reporting their lost belongings since Monday.