"The flow of mud coming out of the crater suddenly stopped for about 30 minutes shortly before noon (0500 GMT) on Monday," said Rudi Novrianto, a spokesman for the government team trying to plug the flow.

"None of our team members knows for sure what happened and we are still trying to determine how it happened," Novrianto said.

The steaming crater, located near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, merely bubbled during the pause, he said.

The temporary hiatus was the first since the mud hole began spewing sludge in May. Indonesian experts are trying to slow the flow by dropping chains of heavy concrete balls into the funnel, a bold plan some say will not work.

The pause was probably unrelated to the hundreds of chains already dropped into the mud hole, Bagus Endar Bachtiar Nurhandoko, an official from the team battling the crater, told the Kompas newspaper.

He said the brief halt may have occurred because parts of the funnel collapsed, creating a temporary obstruction that was eventually cleared by pressurised gas in the crater.

"We were worried that an explosion would follow, but it turned out not to be the case," Nurhandoko was quoted as saying.

Experts have already dropped an initial target of 374 chains, each comprising four concrete balls, into the crater. They hope to narrow the funnel and obstruct the sludge in a bid to curb the flow by up to 70 percent.

Another 500 chains are to be sunk into the mud hole, but Novrianto said the team was still awaiting a fresh supply of concrete balls.

Some of the experts working to calm the crater have said the chains appear to have slowed the mudflow. They are working to confirm the assessment with official measurements.

The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May last year after exploratory gas drilling at the site by a local firm, PT Lapindo Brantas.

The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), including many homes and factories, leaving thousands of people homeless and jobless.

The mud also threatens to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.

earlier related report
Indonesia 'mud volcano' to be fed more concrete balls
Jakarta (AFP) March 15 - A bid to plug an Indonesian "mud volcano" with concrete balls after its toxic flow displaced 15,000 people is to use thousands more of them than planned, an official said Thursday.

The plan involves dropping chains of four heavy balls into the crater, and workers have nearly deposited an initial target of 374 chains -- but hundreds more are to be sent into the steaming funnel.

"The plan is to drop 500 more chains," said Rudi Novrianto, a spokesman for the government team implementing the initiative, which was devised by Indonesian scientists and hopes to slow the mudflow by 50-70 percent.

Some experts are sceptical about the plan's chances of success, with mud still flowing from the crater near Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya.

Geologists have also said that the first batch of concrete balls slid far deeper into the crater than expected.

Estimates had suggested 125,000 to 160,000 cubic metres of mud flowed from the hole daily, but Novrianto said Wednesday that the flow had decreased by around 80,000 to 90,000 cubic metres.

However, he added the team was trying to devise more accurate ways of measuring the flow. The assessment is currently based partly on how much mud is held back behind emergency dykes, which keep breaking and spilling the sludge.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordered the effort to continue for another month. The government expects to spend around 370 million dollars tackling the phenomenon.

About 3,000 residents from the crater's site in Sidoarjo, East Java, who have yet to be compensated after the mud swamped their homes, plan to demonstrate at the presidential palace in Jakarta, reports have said.

The hot mud began bubbling up from deep underground in late May last year after exploratory gas drilling at the site by local firm PT Lapindo Brantas.

The sludge has inundated some 600 hectares (1,500 acres), including many homes, and threatens to swamp a key railway, which is to be rerouted away from the danger zone.

Experts are unsure how long the crater will spew mud if left unchecked, with some suggesting it could be years.

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