The mud volcano Sidoarjo is the world’s biggest mud volcano. The location is in East Java, Indonesia. In the Indonesian language, the name of the mud volcano Sidoarjo is “Lumpur Sidoarjo”. LUSI is a contracted word that combines two single words. The name LUSI is made up of the first two letters of the Indonesian words Lumpur and Sidoarjo.
Lumpur means in Indonesian mud and Sidoarjo is a city south of Surabaya. Sidoarjo locates close to the location where the mud volcano occurred in 2006. Natural mud volcanos are common on Earth but LUSI is special. In fact, it’s not clear whether it’s a manmade or a natural occurrence. However, this area locates close to very active volcanos like Mt Bromo.
The tragedy has a name, the name is LUSI and it’s ten years old. Finally, thousands of people lost their homes and had to move to other places.
There are several theories about why the mud volcano Sidoarjo occurred. Some say the disaster is manmade. Others say it’s a natural occurrence. So far the mud blowout occurred during an oil exploration close to today’s mud spring.
One opinion says that an earthquake probably might be the reason. While other opinions say that a mistake during the oil exploration led to the catastrophe. No matter it’s a huge tragedy for all the people who live in this area. From the beginning, all measures to stop the mudflow failed until today.
LUSI is not like a real volcano spewing ash and lava. A continuous flow of hot water, gases, steam and mud swapped over a huge area. As a result, the mud destroyed roads, high voltage transmission lines, villages and farmland. Not only that, many people lost their properties and homelands. However, it’s a deep impact on the environment for a long time.