Supermoon-triggered king tide turns popular tourist spot Pantai Esen into muddy mess

GEORGE TOWN: The recent supermoon on Oct 17 has triggered intense tidal
movements that stirred up mud from the coastal seabed, temporarily turning the popular tourist beach, Pantai Esen, into a muddy mess.

A check at the beach showed that black sludge along the popular family outing spot, giving the once serene beach a polluted appearance.

Several fishermen said the sludge was a normal phenomenon during monsoon season.

Zulkipli Bakar, 61, said the sludge was due to the king tide phenomenon that hit several states in the country.

“This is the time when the mud becomes slurry, and it will appear along the beach.

“When the tide is low, the situation worsens as the sludge becomes trapped in the still water for an extended period,” he said.

Zulkipli, a fisherman with over 30 years of experience, explained that the mud will disappear during high tide.

He said that the strong currents and rising tides would carry the sludge from the beach back into the open ocean, causing it to gradually dissipate.

Tide charts for Penang showed that at the peak of the supermoon’s spring tide season, the high tide soared as high as 2.9m while the low tide dipped to as low as 40cm, all within a 12-hourly interval.

The vast differences between high and low tides gave rise to strong tidal waves that inevitably kicked up mud from coastal mudflats that were washed up onto Pantai Esen.

Another fisherman Saaroni Hasan, 74, said he and other fishermen in the area have been facing the sludge issue for over 20 years.

“This issue has persisted for some time; it’s not new and is driven by ongoing weather changes,” he said.

He said the beaches in the area have become mudflats, with the problem extending from Pantai Esen to Sungai Burong in Balik Pulau.

On the foul odor emitted from the sludge, Saaroni said that it could be due to constant weather changes and that the organic matter within the sludge was exposed to the heat.

He said the beach will be back to normal once the king tide and monsoon season end, where the sea currents will carry the sludge back to the open ocean.

Commenting on the mud, Penang Infrastructure Corporation (PIC) chief executive officer Datuk Seri Farizan Darus said he had instructed officers to continue assisting the Department of Environment and the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) to monitor the area’s coastal situation.

He said detailed monitoring was done every three months, including in March, June and October this year.

“These reports were submitted to DID and analysis showed no significant changes when compared with the initial baseline survey,” he said, adding that soil investigations between 2014 and 2016 consistently showed thick layers of soft clay on the seabed off Penang island’s southern coast.