NZ man missing amid mayhem of Bali blast

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

At least 216 people, including at least one New Zealand man, are feared dead after car-bombs ripped through packed nightspots on the usually tranquil Indonesian tourism island of Bali.

The death and injury toll rose steadily yesterday.

Late last night overwhelmed Balinese hospital officials said 309 people were wounded, about 90 of them critically, in what the Indonesian police chief said was the worst act of terror in his country's history, and one that the United States condemned as despicable.

Prime Minister Helen Clark rang her Australian counterpart, John Howard, last night to express her condolences for his country's loss in what was clearly a terrorist attack.

"The world is not as safe as it used to be."

Helen Clark said New Zealand had spent a lot more money in beefing up national security following September 11 than Indonesia. Acts such as yesterday's bombing in Bali justified that spending.

The Government knows of seven injured New Zealanders, including four who are in hospital, with serious burns in at least two cases.

It has yet to confirm fears of one death.

Australian travellers are believed to be the worst affected and are said to make up around 75 per cent of the dead and injured.

Some New Zealanders were unaccounted for last night.

They included 25-year-old Wellington man Dean McDougall, who is on a week-long trip with four friends.

His mother, Elaine McDougall, told the Herald from her home near Invercargill last night: "It's been a very, very long day."

Mrs McDougall and her husband, Jim, contacted the Foreign Affairs Ministry and said Dean was missing.

The ministry had no news but said staff from Jakarta would be in Bali as soon as possible, she said.

As the day went by, Mrs McDougall waited by the phone, but heard nothing.

"I have been dreading the phone ringing, but I was also willing it to do so.

"We just want to know where he is. We want to know he is okay. But all we can do is cross our fingers and wait."

A smell of burned flesh hung over Kuta Beach as hospital staff reported bodies charred beyond recognition, and an Australian Air Force plane went to what was once described as a paradise island to evacuate wounded Australians.

Authorities in Canberra fear Australians will account for most of the casualties. Also affected will be predominantly young Britons, Canadians, Germans and Swedes - but few from the travel-wary United States.

Barely a shopfront was left along a 500m stretch of downtown Kuta as rescue staff worked into the night to pull bodies from a bomb crater in the wreckage of the Sari Bar and neighbouring Paddys nightclub in the main street, Jalan Legian.

An expatriate New Zealander living in Bali, Andrew McLatchie, rushed to the scene after feeling the ground shake 2.5km away and arrived to find the flaming shell of a building with bodies strewn about.

He saw windows blown out of shops at least half a kilometre away and tourists walking about with glass cuts in their legs.

"I walked up into the impact zone and it was like a war zone - it was the worst thing I've seen in my life."

Mr McLatchie said hospitals were urging people to make blood donations and to donate any burn creams, bandages, linen or towels they had.

He said medical facilities in Bali had been stretched by the number of casualties.

New Zealanders who had been drinking at Paddys saw people die in front of them and helped pull the injured, including some who had lost limbs, from the horror.

"One guy I pulled out was bleeding from the head and he just died, so we just left him there and got other people," said Wellingtonian Richard Keane.

He said there were two blasts just after 11pm local time (4am NZT).

The first threw him from his chair in Paddys, and the second knocked everyone to the ground again as they scrambled for the exit.

New Zealand diplomats rushed to hospitals in the Balinese capital of Denpasar after arriving from Jakarta late yesterday to assess New Zealanders there with serious burns and to decide whether any should be evacuated.

The Australian airline Qantas has scheduled three extra flights to repatriate traumatised holiday-makers.

Air New Zealand does not fly to Bali but has said it would respond to any Government request for help before the next scheduled Garuda flight on Wednesday.

Indonesia's police chief, General Da'i Bachtiar, said one of the explosions came from a kijang, a jeep-like vehicle, and Security Minister Susilo Bamban Yudhyono vowed to protect strategic targets such as liquefied gas plants.

Another bomb exploded about the same time 50m from the US honorary consulate several kilometres away in Sanur, a more upmarket tourist area on the other side of Denpasar.

No casualties were reported.

The three blasts, followed by a bomb threat yesterday which forced an evacuation at the US Embassy's recreation club in Jakarta, came three days after the US State Department issued a worldwide alert for terror attacks.

On Saturday, a suspected home-made bomb knocked over the gate and smashed windows in the Philippine consulate in Manado on the northern Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff called on New Zealanders yesterday to defer travel plans to Bali until the situation settled.

He said the American Embassy issued a warning last week when he was in the Indonesian city of Jogjakarta that Islamic extremist groups were planning car bombings in Jogjakarta and the capital city, Jakarta.

Mr Goff said that did not happen, and there was no warning that a strike might be made in Bali.

Although most Balinese are Hindu, the island's tourist income has stirred resentment from the much poorer and strongly Muslim neighbouring province of East Java.

In Australia, Prime Minister Howard expressed his nation's outrage at the barbaric attack on innocent people in Bali.

"This wicked and cowardly attack, clearly on the evidence available to us, is an act of terrorism that can have no justification," he said.

The United States condemned what it said was a "despicable act of terror".

"The United States has offered all appropriate assistance to ... see that those responsible for this cowardly act face justice", said the US embassy in Jakarta.

Last week, regional security sources said the US was considering withdrawing some embassy personnel from Indonesia after a grenade blast in the capital.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose Government has been accused by the US and its neighbours of being slow to respond to the terror threat, flew to Bali and promised to co-operate with the international community in fighting terrorism.

Indonesia said it had immediately tightened security around key energy installations and mines.

- Additional reporting by Bernard Orsman and Alison Horwood

Bali messages

New Zealand travellers in Bali, and their families in New Zealand, can post messages on our Bali Messages page.

Foreign Affairs advice to New Zealanders

* Travellers should defer travel to Bali

* NZers in Bali should keep a low profile and remain calm

* Foreign Affairs Hotline: 0800 432 111

Feature: Bali bomb blast

Related links

Pictures from the scene of the blast

Further reading
Feature: Indonesia and East Timor

Related links