For the past four months, a steady flow of hot and noxious mud has erupted from the earth, swamping villages, factories and rice paddies near Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya. Four villages, 20 factories and about 435 hectares (1,075 acres) of farmland have so far been submerged and 13,000 people have been evacuated from the area. Despite the hasty construction of a network of earthen dykes, in an effort to contain the muddy seepage, 12 more villages are in pressing danger of being swamped. A team of European scientists which visited the scene last month said the mud-flow could continue for de-cades-and may be impossible to stop.
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