By Heri Retnowati SURABAYA, Indonesia, Nov 23 (Reuters) - An Indonesian gas pipeline exploded near the city of Surabaya on Java island, killing at least seven people and with dozens reported still missing, officials said on Thursday. The explosion -- which disrupted gas operations in the area -- occurred late on Wednesday in a part of the state-owned Pertamina East Java Gas Pipeline causing "massive fires", Antara, the official state news agency, said.. "So far, there are seven bodies that we have been able to get to up until the early hours of Thursday, one of them cannot be identified after being burned beyond recognition", said Basuki Hadimulyono, head of the national team for mud flow. The incident happened in an area where authorities have been struggling for a months to plug a mud leak stemming from an oil drilling accident that has inundated several villages and caused an unfolding environmental disaster. "There are 11 people injured with complaints ranging from breathing difficulties to burn wounds", the official added. Win Hendrarso, chief of Sidaorjo regency near Surabaya, told Reuters that dozens of people had been reporting missing. Officials said most of those killed by the accident, which occurred at around 7:30 p.m. (1230 GMT), were military and other government personnel involved in trying to secure the mud flow. Authorities have been struggling to plug the massive flow of hot mud experts say could have been triggered by a crack about 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) deep inside an exploratory well drilling operation near Surabaya. PIPES CRACKED Retno Rudi Novrianto, another official from the mud team, said that it was likely that some pipes cracked. "Since the gas pipes are high pressure ones, it produced a big blast." A police official who declined to be named told Reuters earlier the pipeline problem had been contained as of late Wednesday night but did not indicate whether the pipe, which ran through the mudflow area, was continuing to leak. Indonesian television showed panicked residents fleeing the area in cars and on motorcycles. More than 10,000 people have so far been displaced by the mud, gushing at a rate of 50,000 cubic metres (1.75 million cubic feet) a day from the well. Indonesia's state oil and gas company, PT Pertamina, was still assessing whether it needed to import more diesel oil after the gas pipeline explosion, the head of the firm's marketing division told Reuters. A spokesman for PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara said the Indonesian power firm had requested an additional 1,000 kilolitres per day of the oil product from Pertamina to replace gas that has been used to generate electricity in the area. Australian oil and gas firm Santos Ltd. <STO.AX> said on Thursday that the Maleo gas project, in which Santos has a 67.5 percent stake, shut in production after the explosion. Maleo gas, along with gas from other fields in the area, is delivered into the East Java pipeline. Santos' spokesman Christian Bennett said it was too early to determine the expected duration of the outage. But news of the shut in sent Santos' shares down as much as 3.3 percent to a low of A$10.80, but they recovered to A$11.00 by 0155 GMT. (With additional reporting by Telly Nathalia and Muklis Ali in Jakarta, and Jonathan Standing and Ben Wilson in Sydney)
