Ginny Stein travels to Indonesia, to the very edge of one of the country's biggest environmental disasters. A mud volcano that erupted during drilling last year has displaced more than 15,000 people and forced the relocation of a main highway. 150,000 cubic metres of mud oozes forth each day and may do so for up to 30 years if the flow can't be stemmed.
Indonesian authorities are hoping that 375 massive concrete balls dropped into the mouth of a gushing mud volcano which has now swamped an area the size of Sydney's CBD, may be the answer to stemming the flow. Political pressure is building in Jakarta with the crisis revealing the close political ties that exist between big business and Indonesia's senior political leaders.
The company behind the drilling is part of a conglomerate owned by one of Indonesia's richest men. He's also Indonesia's Welfare Minister and a major backer of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. With the company involved claiming the disastrous flow is the result of a natural disaster, and police and prosecutors blaming each other for inaction in prosecuting the case, there seems no resolution in sight. Bambang Harymurti, the editor of the highly regarded 'Tempo' magazine tells Ginny, "you know Indonesia now is the kind of like the wild west, where you have the law but it doesn't really work especially when it involves big businesses."
About International Dateline
SBS Dateline, which began in 1984, is Australia's longest-running international current affairs program. It has a well-earned reputation for authoritative and incisive reporting. Dateline has taken the traditional way of producing TV current affairs and turned it on its head. Reporters who used to travel with a cameraperson and sound recordist now travel alone and have the responsibility of both filming and reporting their stories. The reporters became video-journalists, gaining access to people and places that the conventional camera crews cannot.
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