Bali bombing victims may top 300

INDONESIA: Casualties of the Bali bombing on Oct. 12 last year may reach 300 as the Bali authorities plan to bury 140 bags of unidentified body parts which are believed to belong to 85 people.

The Disaster Victims Identification (DVI) team headed by John Bird of Australia has estimated the number of fatalities at 202 from 21 countries as of last Tuesday. They include 191 people who died in Bali, eight in Australia. Meanwhile, three bodies remain unidentified.

Spokesman for the Bali administration I Gde Nurjaya said here on Saturday the body parts would be buried during a ceremony in Badung graveyard, near Denpasar on March 1.

The bags would be placed inside coffins which will be labeled to enable officials to collect the material should exhumation and identification be needed in the future.

"The procedure (of labeling) is applied to enable exhumation," Nurjaya said as quoted by Antara.

For the burial ceremony, the tribal community requires the Bali administration to pay Rp 8.5 million (US$955) in a purification fee.

The mass burial has been approved by the Australian government, according to the country's Ambassador to Indonesia David Ritchie.

Most of the victims of the Bali bombing were Australians.

Besides causing the deaths of at least 202 people, DVI team spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Suyatmo said the bomb attack also injured nearly 350 people.

Suyatmo said that the eight victims who died in Australia after medical treatment were five Australians, one Indonesian, one Singaporean, and one Briton.

All of them died of severe burns, he added. --JP