It’s been flowing nonstop out of cracks in the ground. It’s smelly, currently covers 10 square miles and is 20 feet deep in some places. No one knows how to stop it.
A drilling company, “the politically connected” Lapindo Brantas, has taken responsibility for it, but won’t say why. Police are investigating. Some say the company is dumping the toxic water into a river without treating it first. Compounding the problems, the weight of retaining ponds for the slime are causing new flows.
Sounds like a bad horror movie, doesn’t it?
PS The same thing happened here in L.A. in February (on a vastly reduced scale.) A drilling company had been pumping hot water into the ground to force oil out, and instead got ooze. Manhole covers popped off, and a building was dislodged from its foundation.