An ongoing mudflow catastrophe in Sidoarjo, Indonesia has submerged a vast area and displaced many villagers. Victims have been coping with this disaster by calling it the Lapindo Mudflow after the company deemed responsible, demanding compensations from the government and Lapindo, forming victim groups, commemorating the disaster annually, and writing their stories to fight a collective memory loss. In many of these activities they were helped by volunteer activists. Kanal Newsroom is a media advocacy team setup to provide information for and train some victims to write, broadcast, and publish their stories online and in print. Voicing their conditions allowed some victims to create meanings of their predicament and put up a resilient response to the seemingly unending disaster.
