On May 29, 2006, mud erupted from the ground in the East Java district of Sidoarjo. Twenty one months on, the flow of toxic sludge shows no sign of stopping. It has so far submerged 12 villages and forced more than 50,000 people to abandon their homes.
Clumsy attempts to halt the mud volcano - locally named Lusi - have ranged from the daring air-drop of hundreds of concrete balls linked by steel cables into the hole from which it has oozed to a cash reward offered to Javanese mystics to stop the flow using supernatural powers. They have all failed.
What has also failed is the quest to make anyone accountable for the disaster. Worse still, victims and legal and environmental activists say they doubt a resolution is around the corner.
Bivitri Susanti, from the Indonesian Centre for Law and Policy Studies, said that there was enough evidence to proceed against Lapindo Brantas - the oil and gas company suspected of having caused the spill by negligence while drilling nearby - but that the company's powerful connections were likely to further derail the course of justice.
'Lapindo is linked to powerful people and has a lot of money to pay experts to do more research,' she said. 'The conflicting reports allow prosecutors to say that clear evidence is lacking.'
Lapindo is partly owned by Aburizal Bakrie, a heavyweight in Golkar, the biggest party in the country's coalition government. He is also Co-ordinating Minister for People's Welfare, who last year was ranked by Forbes as Indonesia's richest man, with a net worth of US$5.4 billion.
