JEMBRANA

A 57-year-old villager fell to his death while searching for wild honey in the forest near Melaya.

I Ketut Nadria, from Manistutu village, had gone into the forest with a friend, I Ketut Seken, last Thursday. According to Jembrana Police, the pair had spent the whole day in the forest, searching for honey, and had covered around 14 kilometres along remote forest trails.

At around 3pm, Seken told officers, the pair separated to search a cliff face for beehives.

After about an hour he heard what sounded like an avalanche, but when he searched the area he could find no sign of his friend, so returned to the village to gather a search party.

Seken and members of Nadria’s family returned to the cliff face, where they eventually found his body lodged in a tree halfway up a 50-metre-high cliff.

“When we found him he was face dawn and there was a wound on his forehead,” said Nadria’s son-in-law, Nengah Wintarsa, 37.

The body was brought back to Manistutu at 9pm.

Melaya Police chief Nyoman Pageh said they were not treating the death as suspicious as it appeared obvious Nadria had died after accidentally falling from the cliff.