German tourist missing in Indonesia’s Bali after landslide amid rainy season

A German tourist was among two men still missing on Tuesday after a landslide struck a glamping resort on the island of Bali in Indonesia.

Heavy rains on Sunday afternoon caused the landslide, which struck the Eco Park Pelaga Glamping Retreat in Petang district at around 11pm, The Bali Times reported. Three tents collapsed while a fourth fell into the Tukad Yeh Kilap River and was swept away by the currents.

The 4-hectare (10-acre) property, which houses 25 tents, sits on a steep cliff beside the river, according to Antara news agency.

There were 23 guests staying at the resort at the time, six of them foreign nationals. Twenty-one of them managed to escape.

I Nyoman Sidakarya, head of the Denpasar Search and Rescue Office, said the resort operator suspected that the two had been inside the tent that had fallen into the river. They were identified on Tuesday as German tourist Sacha Erich Schubert and Indonesian national Bangkit Khoirul Mubarok, Kompas newspaper reported.

Sidakarya said about 90 military and police personnel as well as a police dog unit had been called in for a second day of operations. The search has been expanded to a 2.5km (1.6 miles) stretch along the river.

“Today, we are continuing the search by dividing the team into three sectors,” Sidakarya said. One searched upstream from a dam, another moved downstream. The third cleared mud and rocks at the campsite, using water jets and heavy machinery to expose areas where the men might be trapped.

Authorities have partially closed the dam’s floodgates to reduce river flow and aid the search.

Heavy rain and unstable terrain had hampered search efforts, Sidakarya said. On Monday, the search had to be halted because of unfavourable weather.

Indonesia enters its rainy season this month. On Sunday, the day of the landslide, rainfall reached 121mm (4.8 inches) at Pelaga.

The extreme weather had affected the entire island, causing landslides, fallen trees and road subsidence at 64 locations beyond Pelaga Village, Bali’s Regional Disaster Management Agency chief I Gede Agung Teja Bhusana told Antara on Monday.

“The situation is generally under control. Pelaga EcoPark is the only site where a search for missing victims remains necessary,” he said.