A 16-year-old teenage boy, identified in the press by his initials WS, drowned in a flash flood on Jalan Kusuma Bangsa III in North Denpasar on Friday afternoon, 08 March 2024.
Tribun-Bali.com reports that the teenager from Lamongan, East Java, perished when he was swept away by strong currents in the flood waters before drowning in a roadside ditch.
Bali police said the boy drowned while viewing the flooding at 4:30 pm, together with a group of five friends. The group of young boys frolicked on streets in calf-high rainwater. The victim invited his friends to explore the heavier flooding underway on Jalan Kusuma Bangsa III in North Denpasar.
At around 5:30 pm, the floodwaters had risen to a chest-high level, making it impossible to view the roadway and adjacent gutters. The young men tried to salvage flotsam in the form of large water bottles to use as flotation devices.
At some point, the ill-fated boy slipped and fell into the water-filled roadside gutter, where he drowned as his friends screamed, calling for help.
Only after the flood waters began to recede were neighbors and police able to locate the boy’s now lifeless body and lift it out of the water-filled ditch before bringing it to a nearby hospital.
Police from the North Denpasar Precinct informed Muhamad Sulkhan (55) of the tragic death of his 16-year-old son.
The family refused to submit their son’s body to an official autopsy and sent his body to his hometown of Lamongan, East Java, for burial in keeping with Islamic traditions.
Related Articles
Urgent Weather Warning for Bali
Stay Informed on Bali Tourism-Related News: Subscribe to Bali Update
