Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – The National Mudflow Mitigation Team is preparing to drop 500 additional chains of concrete balls into the mouth of the mud volcano in Sidoarjo, East Java, following its successful insertion of 374 chains earlier this month.

"We're still waiting for repairs on the equipment. Even though we are criticized, we continue working 24 hours a day. From dawn to sunset we work in the field and at night we analyze all aspects of the mudflow," Bagus Endar Bachtiar Nurhandoko, head of the Insertion Monitoring and Evaluation Supervision team from the Bandung Technology of Institute, said Wednesday.

Bagus added that he was monitoring the flow rate from the mud volcano, which has been dropping. Twelve other team members from ITB, including doctoral students, are involved in analyzing the data.

The insertion team, Bagus said, was proceeding carefully since this is the first time this technique has been tried anywhere in the world. The team settled on this method after rejecting the more common approach of drilling relief wells.

"We had complete data and thorough assessments before we started working. We do not want to talk about impossibility. You can see the results; there have been no new discharge points or explosions as feared by oil drilling experts and observers," he said.

Basuki Hadimulyono, head of the mitigation team, said his team had not been able to measure the decline in the discharge because it did not have the equipment to do so.

"The indication of success of the insertion of the concrete balls can be seen from the rising content of H2S (hydrogen sulfide) gas, as it indicates lower pressure from below. In line with the falling pressure, more concrete balls will be inserted," he said.

Basuki explained that the first stage of the concrete ball insertion cost about Rp 3 billion (US$315,789), while the second stage would total Rp 500 million. The additional funds for the second stage would be used mainly to manufacture the concrete balls.

Basuki said the national team also needed Rp 126 billion to build a 1.5-kilometer canal to channel mud from the disaster site into the Porong River.

"We feel securing the additional funds of Rp 500 million for the concrete balls and Rp 126 billion for the permanent canal is more important than renovating infrastructure damaged by the hot mudflow," he said.

However, Amien Widodo, head of the disaster study center at the 10 November Institute of Technology, cautioned against elation, saying the concrete balls could still cause explosions or the formation of new mud volcanoes.

Amien said he was concerned an explosion could take place within the next few days like the one that occurred on Aug. 25 last year. He said at that time, the mud discharge stopped for several minutes, just as it did Monday when it halted for 35 minutes. Then thick smoke billowed 50 meters into the air, followed by an explosion.

Meanwhile, after staging a series of rallies without getting results, refugees from the flooded Tanggulangin Sejahtera housing complex collected blood fingerprints to symbolize their struggle to be compensated for their property. "We are still patient. But don't blame us if we use anarchic means to press our demands," said one of the victims.