JAKARTA, May 28, 2008 (AFP) - Two years after it oozed into   life, Indonesia's "mud volcano" is still spewing toxic sludge across the Javanese countryside at the rate of 60 Olympic swimming pools a day.

And the more homes and farms that disappear beneath its stinking  grey goo, the louder the calls for justice from hundreds of  displaced families who are awaiting compensation.

"There is always a fear that even where we are staying we will  be flooded with mud. Recently the dyke at Renokenongo subsided two  metres (yards), new gas leaks are everywhere," said Sunarto, who 
lives near the mudflow.
  

"When the wind blows westward we can smell the strong odour from  here. It seems like there's no end, but there would be if only the  government would act more swiftly."
  

Like something from a B-list 1950s horror movie, Sunarto's  nightmare began two years ago on Thursday when the mud first  emerged from beneath the earth and began to swallow a corner of 
Sidoarjo district in East Java.
  

It came from a gas well where Lapindo Brantas, a company owned  by the family of billionaire welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, was  drilling without proper equipment.
  

Lapindo says the disaster was triggered by an earlier earthquake  in the central Javanese city of Yogyakarta, which it says squeezed  open the earth's pores and brought the sea of methane-filled mud  squirting to the surface.
  

But while the authorities argue over who, if anyone, is to  blame, the mud marches on, burying villages and making people ill  with foul plumes of highly concentrated methane gas. Worried locals  have said it gets so bad they are afraid to cook in case the  flammable cloud explodes.
  

"The latest data from March this year shows around 640 hectares  (1,580 acres) of land is flooded by the mud," said Ahmad  Zulkarnain, spokesman for the government team which is responding 
to the disaster.
  

Up to 150,000 cubic metres -- equivalent to 60 Olympic-sized  swimming pools -- of hot sludge is still gushing from the volcano's  steaming lips every day, he said.
  

So far all efforts to stem the mudlow, including dropping huge  concrete balls down the hole, have failed. Twelve villages have been affected and at least 36,000 people  have been forced to flee their homes.
  

"Two villages, Kedungbendo and Renokenongo, are completely  inundated, the other 10 are partially affected," said Zulkarnain. Aerial photographs of Kedungbendo and Renokenongo show nothing 
but rooftops poking through the thick slime. Ignoring the company's excuses, President Susilo Bambang  Yudhoyono last year ordered Lapindo to pay 3.8 trillion rupiah  (420.7 million dollars) for compensation and mud containment efforts.
  

The government has also decided to allot 700 billion rupiah (77  million dollars) in state funds to the relief and rebuilding  effort, although it is unclear how much of that money has been  dispersed.
  

Many locals complain however that it is too little, too late. Lapindo executive Yuniwati Teryana told AFP the company had  already spent 3.2 trillion rupiah on land compensation and  rebuilding even though a court ruled in December that the mudflow  was a "natural disaster."

Lapindo patriarch Bakrie was named Indonesia's richest man in a  report by GlobeAsia magazine this week, with an estimated net worth  of 9.2 billion dollars amassed through energy, property and  communications investments.
  

Most of the 12,039 claimants to the company's money, those who  could produce documentation of ownership, have received a first  instalment of 20 percent of the value of their land, Teryana said.
  

The remainder will be paid later this month, she promised. "The rest who cannot show a land ownership certificate will be  resettled with the same land area as the one they lost," she said,  adding that more than 1,000 claimants would be compensated in this  way.
  

But another 582 households or 2,000 people are still living in  makeshift shelters, refusing both payment schemes and demanding  Lapindo buy their lost homes so they can rebuild elsewhere. Sunarto, his wife, two children and two other relatives are  among those refusing to budge, even though Lapindo has stopped  giving them daily food rations and despite having to buy clean water.
  

"Lapindo offered to relocate us but unless they give us  guarantees about when we can actually see and move into our new  homes I won't give them my documents," Sunarto said.
  

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