The number of people killed in Indonesia’s flash flood disaster has risen to 19 as an Australian living in Bali recalls the moment her dogs saved her life as water inundated her home.Â
At least 14 people died in Bali and another two people are still missing after heavy rains and flash flooding hit the popular tourist hotspot on Wednesday.
Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (NDMA) said flooding on Flores island killed five people, including a young child.
More than 500 people have been evacuated, with schools and village halls and mosques converted into makeshift shelters.
“Officers are still carrying out emergency response efforts such as searching for victims and managing floods and landslides that have impacted the public,” NDMA spokesman Abdul Muhari said.Â
Australian Shelly Anissa Sulatumena has lived in Indonesia for 15 years and told ABC’s The World she has never experienced anything like the flash flooding this week.
“This time of year, we normally don’t get rain. It’s dry season. It came out of nowhere,” Ms Anissa Sulatumena said.
Shelly Anissa Sulatumena became emotional as she recounted the flash flooding that inundated her home. (ABC)
She said her dogs were making a “really weird sound” and she went to check on them on Wednesday, before the floodwater that had inundated her home in Denpasar knocked her off her feet.
She eventually reached her dogs and found them “up to their necks” in water and locked in their cage, unable to leave because the water had closed the gate.
“They were screaming for help, basically. If I hadn’t heard them, they would have drowned as well,” she said holding back tears.
Shelly Anissa Sulatumena’s dogs Honey, Luna and Simba survived the floods. (Shelly Anissa Sulatumena)
The Australian, who lives with a physical disability, said they were heroes for alerting her to the danger.
She said the flooding blocked her from accessing her wheelchair, so she barricaded herself in her bedroom, where the water level was lower, and tried to keep the water out using blankets and towels.
A security guard from a friend’s charity eventually rode his bike through the water to check on her.
He helped get her wheelchair but there was no way for her or her dogs to leave.
A neighbour then clambered through the floodwaters and over her fence to open her home’s doors, which dropped the water height enough to leave.
A volunteer cleans up at a dog shelter that was hit by flooding in Denpasar.
 (Reuters: Johannes P. Christo)
“We’ve lost lot of furniture. Beds have to be thrown out and wardrobes and TV cabinets. Anything that was wood, basically, has to be thrown out,” she said.
She said there was no official advanced warning that the flooding would occur.
Neighbourhoods are continuing clean-up efforts, but the Australian said the water had not entirely receded in some areas and added that some roads had suffered significant damage, including sinkholes.
Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said in a statement this week that moderate rain could return in provinces including Bali between Friday and Monday.
ABC/wires