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Bali carnage: 182 now
dead
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The
Age [Australia]
October
13, 2002
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Bali carnage: 182 now dead
Helpline for victim's friends
and relatives:
1800 002 214 or the Foreign
Affairs website
Australian officials have requested concerned family members to
nominate one person to contact this number in order to ensure all
calls can be answered
What happened:
Explosion: Padi bar and the
Sari Club at Kuta beach, Bali.
Dead and injured: 182 killed, hundreds hurt
Evacuation: RAAF planes dispatched to bring back injured
High alert: Australian hospitals preparing to treat victims
Reaction in Indonesia: The worst terrorist incident in the
country's history
Reaction in Australia: Barbaric attack on innocent people
Prime Minister John Howard
announced a national review of security in the wake of a massive
explosion from a car bomb which destroyed a nightclub on the
tourist island of Bali, sparking a devastating inferno that killed
at least 182 people and wounded more than 300 - many of them
foreigners.
The number of Australians killed is
unknown but at least 40 Australians were in Bali hospitals, with
some due to be evacuated to Australia for treatment.
Mr Howard will tomorrow convene an
urgent meeting of cabinet's national security committee to review
plans in place to protect Australian borders from a possible
terrorist attack.
Indonesian President Megawati
Sukarnoputri has flown to Bali and a security alert was declared
nationwide. Security Minister Susilo Bamban Yudhyono said
strategic targets, like liquefied natural gas plants, "will
be protected".
Indonesian Police Chief General
Da'i Bachtiar said the explosion was a car bomb placed in a Kijang,
a jeep-like vehicle, and called it the worst act of terrorism in
Indonesia's history.
There was no claim of
responsibility for the bombing in the Sari Club at the Kuta Beach
resort, which officials said killed Indonesians along with
Australians, Germans, Canadians, Britons, and Swedes.
More than 300 people were injured,
at least 90 of them critically, officials said.
About 75 per cent of the people
admitted to a Bali hospital with injuries from a bomb blast on the
Indonesian holiday island are Australian, said Christine Foster, a
medical volunteer.
Ms Foster who lives on Bali went to
help the victims at Sanglah hospital in Denpasar, 15km north of
the bomb site.
She told BBC television that there
were many other people from "all over the world".
Describing the injuries, Foster
said: "There's a lot of shrapnel. People are having things
sewn up. There are some serious head injuries."
Authorities said a second bomb
exploded near the island's US consular office. Police said there
were no casualties in the second explosion. The US Embassy's
recreation club in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, was evacuated
today after a bomb threat.
The blasts came three days after
the US State Department issued a worldwide alert for terror
attacks and highlighted fears by the United States and others that
Indonesia - the most populous Muslim nation - is becoming a haven
for terrorists and that al-Qaeda operatives are active.
"This is the worst act of
terror in Indonesia's history," Bachtiar said. "We have
to be more alert for other acts of terror including international
terrorism in the future."
The first bomb late yesterday
destroyed the Sari Club, a popular nightspot frequented by
foreigners in the resort of Kuta Beach. The explosion at the
consular office occurred almost simultaneously.
The blast left a large crater at
the entrance to the nightclub, in the centre of Kuta, Bali's
biggest tourist area with a maze of clubs, restaurants, shops,
hotels and beach bungalows. It caters to a younger tourists and
surfers.
The blast ignited a huge blaze -
apparently caused by exploding gas cylinders - which collapsed the
flimsy roof structure, trapping hundreds of revellers inside.
Bali Police Chief Brig General Budi
Setyawan said that most of the victims were Australian tourists.
Australian tourist Rachael Hughes,
18, said she and her boyfriend had just arrived in Kuta Beach when
the blast ripped through the nightclub, smashing the window of
their hotel room.
"Looking outside ... people
are yelling and screaming, they are all going: 'They are all going
to die,' " she told the Seven Network television.
"Standing in the foyer of the
Bounty Hotel, people were just walking in, blood dripping off
them, burns to their face, skin coming off them."
Police had no immediate motive for
the blasts.
In September, the US Embassy in
Jakarta was closed for six days due to what US Ambassador Ralph
Boyce called a "credible and specific threat" that he
suggested was linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.
Other embassies in the region were
also closed, and officials in the Philippines said they had
received warnings from the US government that terrorists were
feared to be preparing truck bombs.
Last month, a hand grenade exploded
in a car near a house belonging to the US Embassy in Jakarta,
killing the man suspected of handling it.
Authorities in Malaysia and
Singapore have alleged that members of Jemaah Islamiyah - a group
said to be seeking to set up an Islamic state in Southeast Asia -
are based in Indonesia.
Singapore has been pressing
Indonesia to arrest Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged leader, Abu Bakar
Bashir, who lives in Indonesia. But Indonesian officials say they
have no evidence against him.
The Sari Club explosion and fire
damaged about 20 other buildings on the same block. Twenty cars
were either destroyed or badly damaged.
Wayan Putra, a driver at the nearby
Poppies hotel, said that after the blast, hundreds of townspeople
rushed toward the nightclub but could not get close because of the
intense flames.
Dozens of injured were evacuated by
mo-ped drivers who normally ferry tourists from one part of the
resort to another. Ambulances also arrived and the blaze was
extinguished several hours later.
"It was horrible. I am
devastated. Bali has always, always been safe. We depend on
tourism for our livelihood. Our name has been smeared by this
horrible blast," Putra said.
Australia's Qantas airline
scheduled an extra flight to Bali today to evacuate Australians.
Bali is Indonesia's top tourist destination.
Although Indonesia has been wracked
by ethnic and religious violence since the overthrow four years
ago of former dictator Suharto, Bali itself has remained quiet.
Unlike the rest of Indonesia, which is almost 85 per cent Muslim,
Bali itself is predominantly Hindu.
AP with Agencies
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