Humanitus Sidoarjo Fund
On May 29th 2006, just 2 days after one of Indonesia’s most destructive earthquakes hit the town of Yogyakarta leaving 6,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless, another disaster struck.
This disaster was a mud volcano which suddenly erupted near the village of Porong in the Sidoarjo regency of East Java. The world would come to know this new mud volcano as LUSI, a compendium of the Indonesian word for mud (lumpur) and the town near which LUSI was born (Sidoarjo).
LUSI was by no means your typical mud volcano and no one was to know that four and a half years on this volcano would be spewing forth up to 150,000 m3 of hot mud per day, eventually flooding an area of almost 800 hectares with a depth of mud ranging from 8-20m.
LUSI was, and still is, seemingly unstoppable. Over a short period of time some 40,000 residents lost their homes, belongings and livelihoods, not to mention in some cases their lives. No one knows at this point in time just how long this volcano will remain active. Some geological experts say it could continue to erupt and grow for another 35-50 years.
It is rare for any disaster to receive as much attention, nor create as much controversy as LUSI. Due to the controversy over the cause of this disaster the affected communities have not received the much needed international aid that is normally the case with other disasters.
With the continuing mudflow and rapid subsidence of the surrounding area the potential for further loss and destruction of thousands more homes and livelihoods is a reality and of paramount concern to the people of the area and all those involved in the management of LUSI.
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