JAKARTA, Mar 19, 2007 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Mudflow in Sidoarjo regency, in Indonesia's East Java province, stopped for 35 minutes Monday as engineers had dropped thousands of concrete balls into the mouth of mud volcano.
It was a good indication over the effort to stop the mud flow, which have taken place since May last year, Haryo Bagus Handoko, an engineer who lead the concrete ball droppings, was quoted as saying.
But Bagus added that his team did not expect that the mudflow would stop permanently in the near future because the mud volcano could not be suddenly closed to avoid great volcanic explosion.
"We expect that the mudflow would stop within next one or two months," he was quoted by Elshinta news radio as saying.
The gaping hole in the ground has spit out a large-scale torrent of hot, black mud, swallowing thousands of homes outside Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya and attracting amazed geologists from around the world.
Most of experts said the flow is unstoppable. But Indonesian experts refuse to listen and have recently begun dropping thousands of concrete balls into the mouth of the mud volcano.
Twelve villages and 20 factories have been swallowed, with mud- caked roofs and the lamppost tops the only reminders of what once were there.
Some scientists suggest the rupture was triggered by improper drilling at a nearby natural gas site. Other research points to a major earthquake two days before the mud first appeared in a rice field in May 2006.
The ball-dropping operation, which began last month, follows several failed attempts to contain or stop the mud.
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