Three Australians may have died in Bali
Sunday Oct 2 10:25 AEST
At least one and possibly three Australians are dead after a string of deadly bombings tore through restaurants in Bali.
At least 25 people were killed and more than 100 injured in Sunday night's coordinated blasts, which have been blamed on terrorists.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said a 16-year-old Australian had been confirmed killed, but two other Australians also may have died.
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"There are also unconfirmed reports of two other Australians who may have been killed," he told ABC television.
"We're just waiting, a gruesome thing to say, but waiting for the morgue report and we should get that in the next couple of hours."
Seventeen Australians had been injured, he said.
The worst of the injured will be airlifted to hospitals in Singapore and to either Perth or Darwin, in an operation that was getting underway on Sunday morning..
Australia has offered medical help to blast victims, regardless of their nationality, as well as federal police investigators and body identification teams.
The latest attacks came just days before the third anniversary of the October 12, 2002 Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
In the latest attack, two explosions ripped through beach-side seafood restaurants 100 metres apart in the fishing village of Jimbaran during the evening meal at about 7.30 pm local time (2130 AEST).
Minutes later witnesses said at least one blast tore through Raja's Bar and Restaurant, 30kms away in a busy shopping precinct in Kuta.
Most of the victims were Indonesian, although injured foreigners included people from Australia, Japan, Korea and Germany, said Prime Minister John Howard.
"It would appear that this is a terrorist attack. It should be seen for what it is - an indiscriminate attempt to undermine democratic Indonesia," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.
Mr Downer said it was obviously an act of terrorism but he did not believe Australians had been targeted.
"There's obviously a determination by these people to destroy the Bali tourist industry."
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said it was too soon to blame anyone, but security experts said the strikes bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, a network seen as the regional arm of al-Qaeda.
A medical officer, who declined to be named, said all of the critically-injured victims suffered similar injuries - massive head, abdominal and chest wounds caused by shrapnel.
"There are not so many burn wounds, it's mostly blast wounds from shrapnel," she said.
"When we started looking at x-rays we could see that in the bomb itself there must have been pellets, because there were lots of foreign objects lodged in people's bodies."
what does everyone think about whats going on over there???
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