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Gloom looms over sunshine island Bali
DPA

Kuta Bali, Oct 2 (DPA) - A day after three bomb blasts left 26 people dead and over 100 injured, the festive, weekend atmosphere that is typically found seven days a week in this popular tourist area of Bali was nowhere to be found Sunday.

Instead of the hordes tourists strolling the streets, talking, laughing and window-shopping, crowds gathered around the Kuta Square shopping mall behind a police curtain trying to find out what happened.

Shopowners and others catering to the tourist industry talked about how they were still trying to crawl back to business and out of the grief caused by the first attack on October 12, 2002, which claimed 202 lives and devastated businesses, when the second attack hit almost three years later.

"It breaks my heart," 43-year-old taxi driver Wayan Martawan told DPA in a quivering voice. "We were just trying to get back on our feet again."

Cafes in the Jimbaran area just south of Kuta were packed with tourists having dinner during their visit to the island when two explosions hit.

But unlike the bombing in 2002, there were still no signs of a mass tourist exodus from the island, and some tourists were insisting on staying to show they refused to bow to terrorist threats.

"I am not leaving," said Craig Watson, a tourist from Australia who came with his wife to the resort Island. "I just got here yesterday."

Most of the victims were taken to the Sanglah Hospital, a designated place for the injured and unidentified victims in the provincial capital of Denpasar.

The intensive care unit was in complete chaos, with grieving family members of the victims waiting around the hospital and others trying to locate missing relatives. 

A woman in a white shirt and blue jeans was covered with blood and was screaming.

Ni Gusti Putu Susanti, a 17-year-old girl from nearby Tuban district, lost her beloved brother in the explosion in Kuta and was being treated for shock.

"My brother died. I am totally shocked," Putu Susanti, with an intravenous drip injected into her left arm, said.

"I came straight to Kuta last night after I heard the news," she said, her voice shaking and eyes welling up. "My brother is a waiter at Raja's restaurant, and I found out that he is dead."

"I can't say it in words. This has really destroyed me," said Putu, looking at her mother standing next to the bed. "My brother was a very kind and loving man, you know."

Putu echoed the hopes of other victims that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

"I really hope the police will bring down all the perpetrators," she said. "They should punish them hard. I think even the death sentence is not enough for what they did to so many innocent people."

Indo-Asian News Service