Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Indonesia: 11 Drowned in Beach Ritual Accident


Sun 13 Feb 2022 | 03:56 PM
Omnia Ahmed

Eleven people were killed after being swept by tidal waves into the sea from the southern coast of Indonesia’s East Java province on Sunday.

Local disaster management officials revealed that the accident occurred at about 00:25 a.m. local time when 23 people were conducting a traditional ritual at the Payangan beach in Jember district.

“Suddenly, tidal waves came and swept them into the sea. It was at the southern coast of Java island, and the waves were huge. They had been forbidden to do such activity,” Head of Operation Unit of the Disaster Management and Mitigation Agency in East Java Budi Santosa told Xinhua.

He added that twelve others survived the accident.

Last October, eleven students drowned and 10 others were rescued during a school outing for a river cleanup in Indonesia’s West Java province.

Around 150 students from an Islamic high school were participating in the cleanup along the banks of the Cileueur river when 21 of them slipped into the water, according to local officials.

“The weather was good and there was no flash flood,” said Deden Ridwansyah, the chief of the Bandung search and rescue office. “Those children who drowned were holding each others’ hands. One of them slipped and the others followed.”