PM confirms 13 dead, 220 missing and 113 in hospital

I guess this was expected, as sad as it is, given our Government's total support of the US in the 'war against terror'. Anyone thinking Australia wasn't targeted is naive. The area's attacked were westerner only clubs, that have historically been a place where Australians holiday (due to our close proximity to Indonesia). 70% of the patrons are Aussies.

I don't know who is right or wrong anymore. I just know that this whole thing is going to get messier and messier...and bloodier and bloodier.

It's a sad world when you can't go to Bali for a holdiay anymore.

I work in the south sydney area and 6 guys from the junior football team were killed. Just kids with their lives ahead of them, who dead set wouldn't know a thing about world politics. And here they are victims.

PM confirms 13 dead, 220 missing and 113 in hospital
October 14 2002
Press shift and reload/refresh for the latest.
· Airlines put on extra flights
· First victims arrive in Sydney
· Australian dies on flight to Darwin
· Bush calls attack cowardly
· ASIO team flies to Bali
· Australian tells of five teammates dying
Prime Minister John Howard said today a final death toll was not expected for a few days but 13 Australians were confirmed dead, 220 were missing, and 113 had been hospitalised.
"The latest formal advice I have so far is 13 Australians so far identified amongst the dead, one Australian has died in transit from Denpasar," he said.
"There are still 220 Australians unaccounted for, but we shouldn't automatically assume that a lot of those are potential fatalities, but at the moment I don't know.
"We do believe that the final death toll might emerge in the next couple of days."
Mr Howard praised the work of the Royal Australian Air Force and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for their efforts in bringing home the injured.
"The crisis services in Australia have really reacted very well and I expect within the next 24 hours to 36 hours all of the serious and critically injured Australians would have been brought back to Australia," he told the John Laws radio show.
"And that really is a remarkable effort by the air force and the defence people and the Department of Foreign Affairs."
Airlines put on extra flights
A spokesman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said today that commercial airlines were putting extra flights to bring home Australian tourists while further RAAF C-130 aircraft carrying injured would arrive in Darwin this morning.
"The death toll overall is believed to be in excess of 180. We understand that 13 Australians have died, although those figures are fluid," he told AAP.
"The department is working to clarify those numbers as the situation stabilises. There is believed to be 110 Australians injured and a further 220 unaccounted for at this stage."
The spokesman said Australian officials were working closely with Indonesian authorities.
He said the Australian Consulate-General in Bali had organised one medical evacuation of five of the most critically injured who arrived in Perth early this morning aboard a BAC-111 aircraft.
The Australian Defence Force had deployed five C-130 aircraft with medical teams to transport patients from Bali.
The first landed in Darwin this morning with 15 on board, one of whom died en route.
A second C-130 is expected in Darwin later this morning with 22 on board.
The spokesman said Garuda had put on an an additional two flights from Bali today while Qantas had scheduled three extra flights to Sydney today and one to Perth tomorrow.
First victims arrive in Sydney
Sydney hospitals have taken in 13 people injured in the Bali bomb blasts.
Two aircraft carrying injured Australians landed at Sydney airport this morning, where a fleet of NSW ambulances were waiting to rush them to hospitals.
A NSW Ambulance spokesman said 13 of the injured were on the first flight, with a further six on the second.
"Twelve (on the first flight) were taken to St George Hospital for treatment, eight of which were stretcher patients and were not able to walk for one reason or another," he said.
"Another one went to Royal North Shore Hospital."
He said the six aboard the second aircraft had minor injuries.
"They were examined by NSW Ambulance officers and were allowed to leave to go and see their own doctors," the spokesman said.
Two NSW Ambulance officers left for Bali last night with a MediVac team, and a further four left about 6.30am (AEST) today to help bring patients back, he said.
CareFlight spokesman Ian Badham earlier said about half of the patients arriving in Sydney had burns, ranging from superficial to serious, while one woman had a fractured skull.
Others had cuts and bruises.
Mr Badham said those injured had been accompanied on one flight by a CareFlight trauma doctor and paramedic, who had stabilised them for the trip home.
Australian victim dies on flight to Darwin
One of the first 15 injured Australians flown by the RAAF from Bali after a suspected terrorist bomb blast died en route to Darwin today.
The Hercules left Denpasar last night only half full of casualties because some of the victims were too ill to delay take-off until more arrived, a defence spokesman said.
More than 24 hours after a bomb destroyed two bars in Kuta, a victim died during the three-hour flight to Darwin.
The plane touched down at 1.45am CST (0215 AEST) at Darwin airport where nine ambulances and an ambulance bus were ready to take them to the Royal Darwin Hospital.
The mostly young patients, all of them burn victims, were carried, pushed in wheelchairs or walked unaided across the tarmac.
"I can tell you the first 15 victims of the tragedy have arrived and sadly one of those died in transit," hospital medical superintendent Len Notaras told media shortly after the victims arrived.
As many as four were in critical conditions while six or seven would be well enough to go home within days.
With up to 100 victims expected to be flown by the RAAF to the hospital in about 12 hours, Dr Notaras said the first arrivals were not the worst injured.
"We expect that there are still some very serious cases to come," he said.
The 11 men and three women were all Australians, coming from states including Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
Future medical evacuations were expected to also include American, Canadian and New Zealand patients.
Many of the patients appeared stunned as they were ferried to the hospital.
Their injuries included fractured limbs, shrapnel wounds and impaling on wood and glass.
"The sheer magnitude of what has actually occurred is going to take some considerable time to sink in for a lot of people including ourselves at the hospital," Dr Notaras said.
"It has been our own, in a sense, 11th of September; it's a tragedy."
A man, who gave only his first name, Mick, waited at the airport fence for hours hoping to glimpse his mate, a 25-year-old father of two, among the injured.
His mate, a Top End station hand who he would name only as Wayne, had gone to Bali on Friday for a four-day break with friends.
"Even if he gets carried off a plane on a stretcher, he's here. I just want to find him," Mick said.
The next Hercules was due at 6.40am CST (0710 AEST).
Federal police and ASIO team head to Bali
Australian Federal Police and a team from ASIO flew to Bali to help Indonesians investigate the bombing, which experts believe to be the work of Indonesian terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Federal cabinet's national security committee will meet this morning to discuss Australia's response to the attack.
Prime Minister John Howard said Australia would take a measured response.
"It is not an occasion for hot headed responses, but certainly not an occasion to imagine that if you roll yourself up into a little ball all these horrible things will go away," he told Channel Nine.
George Bush condemns attack as cowardly
International leaders condemned the attack and US President George Bush offered help to Indonesia to investigate the attack, and called it "a cowardly act designed to create terror and chaos".
More accounts of the victims emerged this morning, with friends telling how five members of Sydney's Coogee Wombats rugby league team had died in the blast at the Sari and Padi nightclubs in Kuta.
Australian tells of five teammates dying
Australian Brett Patterson told today of how five members of the Coogee Wombats rugby league team died in the blast - while others missed death by seconds.
Mr Patterson, who was travelling with the players from Sydney, said 11 members of the amateur club were on holiday in Bali's Kuta beach when they decided to go to the Sari Club last night.
Seconds after some of the group had left the building, the two bombs exploded.
"They got to the corner and then it went off and they turned around and..." Patterson told PA, unable to finish.

 

Hi ZRB

You are in the States, right? Has it got much talk over there? There is a bit of a feeling here that, despite all their rhetoric, the US don't particularly care unless their own are involved. Considering we supported them 100% after September 11, and it's because of that support this has occurred, I certainly hope people in the US are as upset by this as we are here.

The death toll is expected to reach over 200, with most of them expected to be Australian's. The Prime Minister is under a lot of pressure, as people are blaming his strong pro US stance for this occurring.

I think it's not the time to take sides, but as you said, it's getting pretty scary.

 

With no disrespect, this is much bigger than when a US consulate gets bombed due to it's world wide effect. This is a direct attack on citizens of nations whose governments have aligned themselves with the US.

George Bush is already struggling to sell the idea of a united war on terror as it is and this will only make it harder. Allied governments have to answer to their own people first and it's hard to convince people that it's worth them being subjected to such risk to their lives. Exactly what the extremists would want.

 

Yes...I agree it wasn't just Australia who was targeted. I am sure it was westerners per se. However, due to our US support, we have been on the nose in Indonesia for some time now...and anyone in Bali would know that club is 70% Australian. Just about every football team here goes there for their end of season tours. Our government has been 100% behind the US and our consulate in Indonesia and Singapore has been repeatedly threatened since September 11 because of that support.

Obviously, the story here is massive.

http://smh.com.au/

 

sorry Mr Paige, I knew what you went.

I am typing fast (at work) so I may have given you the wrong impression. And yes, I know that American's will feel this event and be saddened by it.

 

Thanks mate.

I don't know how that's possible though. It's impossible to fight an enemy you can't see...and I am absolutely against destroying societies to chase down some mongrels who hide in them. I have a few Indonesian friends, and they are the gentlest, kindest people you could wish to meet.

There just doesn't seem to be an answer to this problem, and these people prey on creating havoc...and they've done it.

Scary thing is, everyone knows it will happen again and again.

PM condemns 'barbaric act of mass murder'
October 14 2002
The bomb attack on a Bali nightclub was a barbaric act of mass murder, killing at least 181 people, Prime Minister John Howard said today, proposing a national day of mourning on Sunday.
He told parliament 14 Australians were confirmed dead and at least 113 Australians were in hospital with injuries.
Mr Howard said a further 67 to 70 had been evacuated. He said a further 220 remained unaccounted for.
Mr Howard moved a special motion in parliament to express Australian outrage over the attack and to offer condolences for the families and friends of the victims.
"The 12th of October 2002 will for the rest of Australian history be counted as a day when evil struck with indiscriminate and indescribable savagery," Mr Howard said.
"What happened was barbaric, brutal mass murder, without justification."
Mr Howard said the bombing had struck at young and innocent Australians whose deaths and injuries Australia mourned.
"In many respects ... the word terrorism is too antiseptic an expression to describe what happened," he said.
"It's too technical. It's too formal."
Mr Howard said a meeting this morning of cabinet's National Security Committee had decided to review domestic anti-terrorist legislation.
"It is inevitable ... that in the wake of what occurred in Bali over the weekend, that the thoughts of Australians will turn to the potential vulnerability of our own soil, our own mainland, to a possible terrorist attack," he said.
"There's no point in ignoring that.
"I do the Australian people no service if I pretend that in some way that it can't happen on the Australian mainland."
Mr Howard said the attack proved the need to push ahead with the war against terror.
He said those responsible for the attack were no friends of Indonesia.
``Nothing can excuse this behaviour,'' he said.
The prime minister said he had spoken to United States President George W Bush, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
He said the Queen had also sent a message of condolence.
Mr Howard proposed next Sunday be a national day of mourning for those lost in the bomb attack.
``It is a very sad time for our country,'' he said. ``I'm saddened beyond words of proper description by what happened.
``I hope I speak for all Australians in sending my and their love to those who are grieving, and expressing the fierce determination to do everything I and we can to bring to justice those who have done such evil things to our people.''
The prime minister also addressed concerns that Australia was targeted in the Bali attack because of its close links to the United States, saying terrorism was an indiscriminate evil.
``It's dispensed in an indiscriminate, evil, hateful fashion and those who imagine that it is dispensed according to a hierarchy of disdain do not understand history and are deluding themselves,'' he said.
Mr Howard said the war against terrorism was not one aimed at Islam, saying Muslims would join with Christians, Jews and others in decrying the Bali attack.
``We fight terrorism because we love freedom,'' he said.
``We fight terrorism because we want to preserve the way of life that this country has.
``You do not seek to covenant with evil, you do not seek to reach an accommodation with those who would destroy your sons and daughters and take away the security and stability of this country.''
Opposition Leader Simon Crean said Mr Howard had Labor's full support on a day of great tragedy for all Australians.
``This was a brutal act ... a calculated brutal act against innocent Australians as well as innocent residents of Indonesia and on citizens from around the world,'' he said.
He said the bombing looked like being the nation's single blackest day since WWII.
``I say that knowing there have been terrible incidents in our history since that time in which many lives have been lost, but never so many it would seem in one day,'' he said.
He said the victims had been young Australians cut down in the prime of their lives.
Most Australians, Mr Crean said, had holidayed in Bali and were feeling it could have been them.
``In that sense I think that we get something of a better understanding of what Americans must have felt on September 11 in particular,'' he said.
Mr Crean warned against trying to find scapegoats in Australia for the Bali blasts, particularly among the Islamic community.
``We've got to be certain it is the terrorists only we pursue,'' Mr Crean said.
He said the attacks were against the teachings of all religions, and were not the work of people of faith.
``Don't make scapegoats of others,'' he said. He called for an urgent regional anti-terrorism summit.
He said the leaders of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand should attend the summit. ``A regional summit on terrorism can bring to justice those responsible for Bali,'' Mr Crean told parliament.
The summit would also help establish the regional machinery needed to combat terrorism.