A pair of students from Bali’s Udayana University were found dead after they were swept away by the strong waves at Tegal Wangi Beach in Jimbaran.
The victims, engineering students, I Putu Edi Putra Juliawan, 19, of Kintamani, Bali and I Gede Agus Aditya Putra, 19, from Tabanan, had gone out to the beach to enjoy the sunset with friends on Tuesday evening. Juliawan and Putra, along with another friend decided to go in for a swim, but were forcefully dragged out by the waves.
While their friend was reportedly rescued by a foreign tourist at the beach who saw the whole thing unfold and jumped in after them, Juliawan and Putra, could not make it back to the beach and eventually drowned.
Tegal Wangi is a small, secluded beach in the quiet area of Jimbaran. The beach is becoming an increasingly popular spot for wedding photos and sunset-gazers. Known for its strong currents and powerful waves, this week’s tragedy is not the first time people fell victim to the conditions there. A woman was fatally dragged away during her pre-wedding photo shoot at the beach back in 2015.
Search and rescue (Basarnas) found one of the victims several hours after he was reported missing on Tuesday, but they did not find the second victim until the next morning on Wednesday, floating a hundred meters or so away from the beach.
Head of Basarnas Denpasar, Gede Darmada confirmed the incident to Indonesian media.
“A few hours later, one of the students was found, stuck in the reef. But because it was night and the location endangered the safety of our officers, the search resumed on Wednesday morning,” Darmada said, as quoted by Tribun Bali.
A video from Basarnas Bali shows the challenging evacuation process, as Basarnas officers themselves even get knocked around by big waves at Tegal Wangi.
After the two bodies were evacuated, they were brought to the morgue at Sanglah Hospital.
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