Three-meter-high tidal waves pounded Bali’s Kuta beach on Friday (5/18/2007) forcing domestic and foreign tourists to desert the popular seaside vacationing area.
The local water tourism safety agency (Balawisata) had asked its workers to take anticipatory measures as the waves could kill people, agency coordinator I Made Suparka said.
“We are working hard. We have fielded 80 workers to keep tourists from coming to the beach. Many of them have been tasked to keep an eye on the tourists from 12 towers along the 20-km Bali beach,” he said.
The guards had also asked food, beverage and handicraft vendors on the beach to abandon the area to avoid the dangerous waves, he said.
Bali police’s chief spokesman Senior Commissioner AS Reniban said marine tourism operators and fishermen should avoid the sea, citing a meteorological and geophysics agency report about two to three meter-high waves that might came to the Bali beach.
In the district of Badung, tens of fisherman`s houses on Kedonganan and Jimbaran beaches were destroyed.
Local people in Jimbaran and Kedonganan beaches said they tidal waves swept all of a sudden, and dragged away fishermen`s huts. Another popular tourist spot in Bali which was hit by tidal waves on Friday was Sanur beach. Conditions on Sanur beach after being ounded by the high waves, however, were not as bad as in Kedonganan and Kuta.
South Denpasar Police Precinct Chief Adjunct Commissioner Putu Gunawan said the tidal waves that hit Sanur beach were about three meters high.
“Though they were high, the waves did not touch building structures on the beach,” he said.
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