On May 29 2006, a geological anomaly was awakened in the highly
populated district of Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. Steam, water
and mud erupted 200 meters above the well where oil & gas
company PT. Lapindo Brantas partly owned by one of the country's
richest and most powerful man conducted exploratory drillings.
Equivalent to 50 olympic-sized swimming pools of boiling toxic
mud and noxious gases is expelled per day. A 640-hectare area is
buried in mud displacing at least 40,000 people and affecting tens
of thousands more. On May 29 2007, Indonesia's Audit Board held
Lapindo responsible for improper drilling procedures. Lapindo
claims the eruption was triggered by an earthquake 2 days before
in Central Java, 250 kilometers away. In 2009, the Supreme Court
ruled in favor of Lapindo. However, a significant number of world
leading scientists declared the phenomenon an unnatural disaster.
Award-winning Indonesian photographer Kemal Jufri's career started in 1996 when he joined Agence-France Presse (AFP). He left AFP two years later and worked as a photo contributor for Asiaweek until the magazine closed down in 2001. Since then he has worked as a freelance photographer across Asia for major publications, including Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, STERN and Der Spiegel. His photographs of the Mount Merapi eruptions in Central Java at the end of 2010 won him a total of seven awards from five prestigious International Photojournalism competitions including the World Press Photo, Picture of The Year International, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, China International Press Photo Contest and Prix De La Photographie Paris (PX3).
