Indonesian Mudflow Now Threatens Key Rail Line - 13,000 Residents Already Displaced - AFP

[hatrack]

A massive "mud volcano" which has forced thousands of people to flee their homes on the Indonesian island of Java is now threatening to sumberge a key railway line, a minister said Thursday. A gas well near Surabaya in East Java has spewed steaming mud since May, submerging villages, industries and agricultural land and forcing 13,000 people to flee their homes.

The advancing sea of mud now threatens to submerge the main railway line connecting Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, with the rest of East Java. Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said "there is no other choice but to move the tracks because it's dangerous."

At the moment, the situation was "safe but with a high alert. This means we monitor the situation every two hours," he told ElShinta radio. But Rajasa warned trains should slow down to 20 kilometres (13 miles) per hour along the section the mudflow is closing in on.

"The mud is about one metre (three feet) from the tracks now," Ipung Nizar, a resident of Jatirejo, one of the five villages inundated by the mud spill, said from the affected area.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2006/061221100324.54dr4qj6.html