The Mining Advocy Network (Jatam) has asked the government to take legal action against a geothermal company following a suspected gas leak incident that has poisoned hundreds of residents in North Sumatra on Thursday.
Jatam reported that over a hundred residents in Sibanggor Julu Village and Sibanggor Tonga Village, Puncak Sorik Marapi Subdistrict, Mandailing Natal Regency were suspected of having inhaled Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) poisonous gas when PT Sorik Marapi Geothermal Power (SMGP) opened a borehole on Thursday, February 22, 2024. They were rushed to the nearest hospitals and health facilities after complaining of nausea, vomiting, dizziness and fainting.
Chief of the Mandailing Natal Police, Adjunct Senior Commissioner Arie Sofandi Paloh, said they were waiting for the results of laboratory test held by the North Sumatra police’s Chemical, Biological and Radioactive Detachment.
“Based on the chronology of the incident that we have obtained, there were no problems [of leakages], but today [well testing] was temporarily halted,” Arie said as quoted by BBC News Indonesia on Thursday.
In addition to the gas leak incident, PT SMGP’s geothermal operations have also allegedly contributed to reduced productivity of local residents’ agricultural land (rice fields), which are less than 100 meters away from the company’s mining site. Residents had been traumatized to work in their respective fields amid the company’s relentless toxic smoke and the mudflow originating from the company’s drilling activities.
SMGP’s concession area reaches 62,900 hectares spread across 10 sub-districts and 138 villages in Mandailing Natal Regency, North Sumatra province. Currently, the company only operates in 10 villages in Puncak Sorik Marapi and Lembah Sorik Marapi sub-districts.
Hema Situmorang, Head of Campaign Division at Jatam, asked the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources to revoke PT SMGP’s operating license following the incident.
She urged the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Environment and Forestry Ministry, and the National Police to take legal against against PT SMGP, by filing criminal charges for the loss of lives and for the environmental damages caused by the company’s operation. She also urged the ministries to immediately take action for the recovery of the suffering residents and the damaged environment.
Hema said Jatam had recorded a number of incidents since the beginning of SGMP’s operation, ranging from major conflicts involving residents, mining pits that claimed lives, to repeated incidents of gas leakages that also claimed lives.
The series of incidents that killed a number of resident have never been legally investigated. Jatam noted that the government had only sanctioned PT SMGP once, even then it was limited to temporary suspension of the company’s operations after the incident that claimed lives on January 25, 2021.
