There was controversy as to what triggered the eruption and whether the event was a natural disaster or not . According to PT Lapindo Brantas it was the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake that triggered the mud flow eruption , and not their drilling activities . Two days before the mud eruption , an earthquake of moment magnitude 6.3 hit the south coast of Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces killing 6,234 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless . At a hearing before the parliamentary members , senior executives of PT Lapindo Brantas argued that the earthquake was so powerful that it had reactivated previously inactive faults and also creating deep underground fractures , allowing the mud to breach the surface , and that their company presence was coincidental , which should exempt them from paying compensation damage to the victims . If the cause of the incident is determined to be natural , then the government of Indonesia has the responsibility to cover the damage instead . This argument was also recurrently echoed by Aburizal Bakrie , the Indonesian Minister of Welfare at that time , whose family firm controls the operator company PT Lapindo Brantas
2006 Yogyakarta earthquake
2006 Yogyakarta earthquake
Sidoarjo mud flow