Five hotel workers killed after lift cable at Bali resort snaps

SINGAPORE: Five employees of a resort in Bali were killed last Friday (Sep 1) after the cable of a lift they were in snapped, plunging them into a ravine.

The accident took place at around 1pm at the Ayuterra Resort in Ubud, according to Indonesian media.

Two men and three women from the resort’s housekeeping department – aged between 19 and 24 – were in an outdoor lift, which operates on a 60-degree incline, when its steel cable snapped, reported online news outlet detikNews. 

The lift transports resort employees and guests up and down the slope.

According to The Jakarta Post, the glass-encased lift dropped about 100m down the embankment, killing two people on the spot. It added that the three other workers died after they were taken to the hospital. 

News website Bali Discovery added one of the workers was thrown onto an adjacent river ravine.

A resort employee told various Indonesian media outlets that he heard screaming followed by a loud crash and found the lift had disappeared from view. 

Ubud police are still looking into possible negligence and a lack of maintenance, but according to The Jakarta Post, preliminary investigations indicated that the cable broke as the lift was overloaded.

“It is possible that the steel cable was not strong enough to pull the load and the safety wedge or brake did not work,” said Ubud police chief commissioner Made Uder.

The owner of Ayuterra Resort, Linggawati Utomo, expressed her condolences to the families of the victims, telling the Bali Express website on Saturday that funeral expenses would be covered in addition to other forms of compensation.