it refers to a geological phenomenon where underground pools of mud become pressurized and sometimes spew out to the surface.
Want to know what happens when you stand on top of one of those and start drilling into it?
You can ask the people at the drilling company, PT Lapindo Brantas, who began an operation in East Java, Indonesia to drill for natural gas (to a depth where no gas had previously been found), on a fault line a short distance away from the Ring of Fire. In an attempt to avoid a tragedy that even Ray Charles could see coming, more experienced drillers tried to warn them to stay away from the dangerous terrain, but the PT team just chuckled, swilled a beer and insisted that it was totally going to work.
The Disaster:
Having already spit in the face of sensibility, the drill team decided it was time to cock punch the law as well, so in the second phase of drilling they opted not to use the required protective casing to stabilize the drill site, presumably subcontracting the job out to the Foot Clan.
Unsurprisingly, running a giant drill next to a fault line tends to result in seismic activity, and the result was the eruption of a mud volcano which continues to this very moment, spewing 88,000 cubic feet of bullshit each day and leaving 1.5 million people without homes as a result.
The drill team responsible first tried to pass the blame off on an earthquake that occurred two days before in Central Java, forming faults as far as their drill site 186 miles away. When scientists pointed out that an earthquake that severe would've shut down drilling (which obviously it hadn't), PT Lapindo Brantas was ordered to pay $278 million.
The higher-ups of Lapindo Brantas tried to sell their company to an off-shore group for $2, effectively dodging responsibility for the disaster. But the government stepped in and said if they intended to get out of paying victims for their losses, they'd have to get more creative than that. Some analysts believe the company will next declare bankruptcy in an effort to do that very thing.
http://www.cracked.com/article/141_6-natural-disasters-that-were-caused-by-human-stupidity/
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