The Balinese People's Forum to Reject Reclamation (ForBALI) is urging Indonesia's Meteorological, Climatological, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) to issue a strict prohibition on infrastructure development in southern Bali, highlighting the area as being prone to disasters.
"[We hope] that BMKG will take a swift step and issue a prohibition on building infrastructure and property development, plans of which are currently in the works in a disaster prone area," Suriadi Darmoko from ForBALI's political division, told reporters yesterday.
Suriadi added that according to a 2017 study on national earthquakes, there is the possibility of a megathrust earthquake, with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale, hitting south Bali.
The Indonesian archipelago is no stranger to natural disasters, with many of the country's islands – including Bali – straddling on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide.
ForBALI hopes to ride on the momentum from a recent meeting between President Joko Widodo and BMKG, held back in July, in which the president suggested that no development should take place in disaster-prone areas. The statement was also conveyed on his Twitter account:
"Indonesia is located on the disaster-prone ring of fire. So if one location is prone to earthquakes or floods, it must be explicitly conveyed: don't build airports, dams, housing," Jokowi tweeted.