More than 100 houses in Denpasar were damaged by whirlwinds Wednesday. Preliminary reports say that it caused no fatalities.
As
of 4 p.m., the local authorities had confirmed that at least 75 houses
were partially or severely damaged in one housing complex, identified as
Jati Pesona estate on Jl. Pulau Moyo. The powerful winds also inflicted
damage on temples, mosques and cars.
Earlier in the afternoon,
Bali Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) operations head I Gde Made Jaya
Serataberana revealed that three locations had bore the brunt of the
incident.
“We haven’t seen any severe injuries,” he said.
Panji,
one of the agency’s operations team members, said that personnel in
Pemogan and Pedungan reported that 50 house roofs had been damaged.
The
Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported it had
earlier warned agencies of a potential whirlwind at around 12:30 p.m. on
Wednesday.
“The agencies should have forwarded the information
to the public,” said BMKG’s data and information division head, I Nyoman
Wiryajaya.
Wiryajaya explained that the public should receive
alerts immediately for extreme weather, earthquakes and other natural
disasters.
“We are developing an early warning system for climate-related incidents,” he said.
As of now, he said, earthquake information was accessible via the Internet and agencies could utilize this to informed.
Wiryajaya
said that severe storms could occur at any time, especially during
cloudy weather. Among the characteristics were the appearance of
cumulonimbus (dense, towering vertical) clouds, short periods of heavy
rain and thunder.
The BMKG predicted that the peak of Bali’s
rainy season would be between January and February. The public must
remain alert, Wiryajaya said.
Late last year, a similar whirlwind also destroyed dozens of houses and killed one person in Tabanan.
Made
Astra, a weather analyst at Denpasar Geophysics Station, said the freak
weather could appear when hot and cold air masses met.
The hot air on Wednesday came from Denpasar, he said.
“Right
before the incident, Denpasar was 32.4 degrees Celsius. Thereafter, the
cold air mass came in from the city’s southwestern area,” he said. “The
meeting of these two resulted in a whirlwind around
Pemogan-Pedungan-Sesetan and the areas around them.”
He explained that weather such as this normally lasted for three to five minutes and moved horizontally.
Hestri, a Pedungan resident, said she witnessed many goods, including roofs, wood and plastic bags flying about.
“Waste was everywhere,” said the printing company worker.
The
picture of the tall, spiraling column of air that played havoc as it
moved violently across the southern outskirts of Denpasar soon went
viral across social media and instant messaging services.
Source:
thejakartapost.com
