By September 2006 the hot mudflow had inundated rice paddies and villages, resulting in the displacement of more than 11,000 people from eight villages. Twenty-five factories had to be abandoned, and fish and shrimp ponds were destroyed. Transportation and power transmission infrastructure has been damaged extensively in the area. A network of dams and barriers has been erected to contain the mud and here has been an effort to stop and/or lessen the effects of the mud flow through the dropping of chains of concrete balls into the crater. This plan has been criticized for potentially inducing further flows to the surface in an area already severely weakened rather than succeeding in stemming the flow. The first series of concrete balls was lowered into the mud volcano on February 24, 2007. It was planned to deployed up to 1500 such balls. On March 19 2007, after hundreds of balls had been dropped into the mouth of the hole, the flow of mud stopped for a period of 30 minutes. As of July 2008, the mud flow is still ongoing. A study has found that the mud volcano is collapsing under its own weight, possibly beginning of caldera formation