Bali administration prepares mass grave for bomb victims<\/p>\n
I Wayan Juniartha and Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali<\/p>\n
The Bali administration has set aside a plot of land in the
\nMumbul area of Jimbaran subdistrict, some 30 kilometers south of
\nthe provincial capital of Denpasar, for a mass grave for
\nunidentified victims of the Oct. 12 bombing in Kuta.<\/p>\n
\"There are several state-owned plots of land in that area, and
\nwe have decided to use one of them as the site for the mass
\nburial,\" Deputy Governor I Gusti Bagus Alit Putra said on
\nTuesday.<\/p>\n
The death toll in the bombing reached 190 after six victims
\nwho were evacuated to Australia died of their injuries on
\nTuesday. Most of the fatalities were foreigners.<\/p>\n
Alit Putra declined to give the exact location of the plot or
\nhow large the designated mass grave would be.<\/p>\n
Addressing concerns by several customary villages or desa
\nadat, which do not want unidentified bodies buried on their land
\nfor fear that they will defile the spiritual realm of the
\nvillages, Alit Putra stressed that the designated land belonged
\nto the provincial administration, not the customary villages.<\/p>\n
\"After all, the area around the designated land is already
\nfilled with several different cemeteries,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The only place that matches Alit Putra's description is
\nlocated next to the Ngurah Rai highway connecting Denpasar and
\nKuta, and linking the airport and the tourist resort of Nusa Dua.<\/p>\n
Alit Putra said the bodies of the unidentified victims could
\neither be buried directly or cremated first.<\/p>\n
He said the Bali administration was waiting for a forensic
\nteam to complete its work trying to identify the victims before
\nbeginning the process of the mass burial.<\/p>\n
\"As soon as the forensic team completes the identification
\nprocess on the bodies and decides that some of the bodies are
\nbeyond identification, and after securing permission from the
\ncountries that lost citizens in the bombings, then we will begin
\nto move the bodies to the designated plot,\" he said.<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday, the team has identified 52 bodies.<\/p>\n
Lanang Rudiarte, director of Sanglah General Hospital in
\nDenpasar, said that of the 52 bodies, 20 had been returned by
\ntheir families to their respective countries, including two
\nAmericans, two Australians, three Britons, one Equadorean and one
\nGerman.<\/p>\n
Lanang also said that his team, assisted by an Australian
\nexpert, had started to embalm the victims.<\/p>\n
The medical personnel, assisted by experts from Australia,
\nSingapore and Thailand, had also started conducting DNA tests on
\nthe victims.<\/p>\n
\"Thus far, tests have been conducted on their blood,
\nfingernails and their teeth,\" Lanang said.<\/p>\n
Unlike the first three days after the tragedy, only a few
\nforeign volunteers were seen in Sanglah on Tuesday as some of
\nthem had been replaced by volunteers from the International
\nCommittee of the Red Cross along with local counterparts from the
\nIndonesia Red Cross.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Gantry Amalo, a local volunteer from Humanitarian
\nVolunteer Network for Bali (JRKB), said that Sanglah had received
\nmore than Rp 350 million in aid from various sources, including
\nlocal and foreign institutions.<\/p>\n
The hospital, nevertheless, still complained that the money
\nwas not enough to cover all its expenses as it still had to pay
\nRp 31 million in debt to local drug stores, Gantry said.<\/p>\n
The central government has promised assistance amounting to
\nsome Rp 1 billion to a number of hospitals, including Sanglah.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Bali administration also promised to assist the
\nfamilies of the dead to the tune of Rp 3 million each as well as
\nthe injured, with Rp 2.5 million each.<\/p>\n
Lanang said that currently Sanglah hospital was only treating
\n21 injured, mostly locals, while some others were being cared for
\nat the Puri Raharja and Dharma Husada Hospitals in Denpasar.<\/p>\n
\"The 121 injured foreigners have been evacuated to various
\ncountries, including Australia and the U.S.,\" Lanang said.<\/p>",
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