This story was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. Rice farmers living in Sidoarjo Regency, Indonesia, awoke to a strange sight on May 29, 2006. The ground had ruptured overnight and was spewing out steam. In the following weeks, water, boiling-hot mud, and natural gas were added to the mixture. When the eruption intensified, mud started to spread over the fields. Alarmed residents evacuated, hoping to wait out the eruption safely. Except that it didn’t stop. Weeks passed, and the spreading mud engulfed…
