Another Day, Another Uluwatu Cliff Collapse In The Wake Of Seawall Project
“If you drill for months with 10 or 15 excavators, it’s practically an earthquake.”
Over the past six months, we’ve watched the Seawall Project at Uluwatu unfold in a mess of half-baked plans. From grotesque CGI leaks after the project had already begun, to the dark origins of this whole thing, to limestone pollution dumped into the ocean mid-project — threatening the waves and the international suits behind it. We even got a professor of coastal geography to weigh in on the environmental fallout.
Plenty of noise was made. But in the end, it fell flat, like shouting at a brick wall. Scientists warned, the public screamed, the surf community howled, and locals begged for their voices to be heard. Yet the project trudged on. The protests died down, and here we are, left hanging on a promise for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that was supposed to surface months ago.
Yesterday, the cliff face near Lurches — a surf spot just a hundred yards or so from the main development site — caved in on itself.
“We were surfing at Ulus yesterday, and the water was thick with limestone. We couldn’t figure out why, because we thought the developers had stopped dumping it,” says Piter Panjaitan, one of the loudest voices in the fight against the seawall project. “Then we figured it out — the cliff on the north side of Uluwatu Temple was collapsing. It’s a huge chunk, you can see it, a real big chunk, and that’s where all the murky water’s coming from.”
Piter’s not buying the coincidence. He’s convinced it’s tied directly to the development.
“If you drill for months with 10 or 15 excavators at once, it’s like a 2.2 on the Richter scale. Practically an earthquake. After all that drilling, all that digging, all that weight moving over the earth, it’s only a matter of time before the cliff collapses. It’s definitely not from the waves — it’s been flat for months.”
They’ve prodded, stirred the earth, and now it’s starting to crack open.
“The cliff under the development at the temple collapsed a month ago. Luckily, no one was working there, or they’d be dead. Now they’re trying to build the seawall there. They’ve already put in a bunch of tetrapods.”
A few weeks ago, Piter attended a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Public Works, special planning authorities, and local government representatives. In the aftermath, the elders of Pecatu Village were given a written promise that the road leading up to the temple would remain non-commercial — reserved for maintenance, emergency access, and religious ceremonies.
“Mega Samadhi and I were at the latest meeting, representing the board riders. They promised the Environmental Impact Assessment would be done by December, but now we’re two months into the year, and still nothing.”
Piter sums it up: “With all these cliffs collapsing, it’s hard to know where this is going. I just hope everyone stays safe. A few weeks ago, a woman died just below the temple. No one knows what happened. That’s two deaths now—one about five months ago, another just recently. This whole thing is insane, man. I don’t even know what to say anymore.”
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