Surabaya – Mudflow victims in Sidoarjo, East Java, have criticized the developer building their houses in Renojoyo village, which they claimed were of low quality and unfit to live in, news portal tempointeraktif.com reported Sunday.

One of the residents, Sudarto, complained that the house in which he had been living for the past five months had many cracks in the walls and that the ground water was not potable, even after boiling.

Sudarto, however, is one victims who have chosen to live in the houses on the 6,000-square-meter housing complex. Other families have chosen to build temporary shelters close to the complex in protest at the low quality of the houses.

A total of 536 families pooled the money they received from PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, a company established by the Bakrie family, and bought the plots at the housing complex for Rp 17 million (about US$1,750) per plot.

Following this, the Sidoarjo Association of Real Estate Developers appointed a developer to build houses for these families. The developer charged Rp 55 million per house.

Local councilor Sulkan Wariyono said his council would inspect the quality of the houses.