New Indonesia Calamity: A Man-Made Mud Bath
Sigit Pamungkas/Reuters
Houses in Sidoarjo, in Indonesia, were inundated by mud late last month, the result of a natural gas drilling project that has gone awry. More Photos >

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By RAYMOND BONNER and MUKTITA SUHARTONO
Published: October 6, 2006
KEDUNGBENDO, Indonesia, Oct. 5 — It started as a natural gas well. It has become geysers of mud and water, and in a country plagued by earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis another calamity in the making, though this one is largely man-made.

Mud Volcanoes in Indonesia

The New York Times
The highway west of Kedungbendo has been cut by the mud flow.
Eight villages are completely or partly submerged, with homes and more than 20 factories buried to the rooftops. Some 13,000 people have been evacuated. The four-lane highway west of here has been cut in two, as has the rail line, dealing a serious blow to the economy of this region in East Java, an area vital to the country’s economy. The muck has already inundated an area covering one and a half square miles.

And it shows no signs of stopping.

The mud is rising by the hour, and now spewing forth at the rate of about 170,000 cubic yards a day, or about enough to cover Central Park.

Foreign companies

Wow...I don't know about an axis shift but wow.

All of the flooding was a result of the actions of man. The axis has shifted and it doing so at an alarming rate. It is a woder that California and Hawaii are still above water. I wonder, from that photo, how many people spent their life earning money to build their house in that bowl there right next to the ocean? Reminds you of New Orleans. Is there a connection between the happening of New Orleans and there in Indonesia? I think there is! God did not do this, man did.

Could you tell us more about the axis shifting???

What is strange is that THIS LOOKS LIKE A FLOOD. I keep thinking of the verse saying that in the last days it will be as in the days of Noah (Flood);
The giant tsunami was a type of Flood; so was Katrina, and Rita. Now another one???

I have heard that the original Flood (1656 God) caused the earth' axis to... shift!!!

Gregg, could you tell me how man is causing the axis to shift? I know you throw lots of scientific jargon out, so, please, dumb it down for me?!? I've always thought it was rather arogant of man to think that we could cause something so 'earth-changing' such as global warming and axis-shifting. I KNOW the idea of man causing global warning through the production of chloro-flourocarbons is bunk. When Mt. Pinatubua erupted, it released 600,000 times the amount of CFC's into the atmosphere than mankind EVER created (only one volcano!), so until we can keep volcanoes from erupting, what's a can of hairspray going to hurt?

Thank you, Angela