Internet buzzes with news of Bali's missing

Internet buzzes with news of Bali's missing

Pete Harrison, Reuters, London

Relatives and friends of those still missing after blasts tore
through a strip of bars in the Indonesian resort of Bali have
turned to the Internet desperately seeking some hope to cling to.

Australians, who account for the largest single group of
victims with 22 confirmed dead and 160 still missing, posted
poignant appeals for help, as did Britons who account for the
second largest group with 17 thought dead and 13 still missing.

Some were survivors of the blast who told of their horror:
"The sky was thick with smoke and flames," wrote Briton Paul
Cerny. "I was terrified. Everywhere I looked people were injured
or dying or dead... A dead man was carried passed me, burnt so he
was unrecognizable."

Other messages appealed directly to the missing. "Jamie
Wellington, on rugby trip, New Zealander living in Jakarta,
please be okay, and go home to your beloved wife and daughters,"
wrote Rachel.

The messages appeared on a BBC Web site and on Indonesia's
Bali tourism site.

Briton Peter Joyce appealed for help in finding his brother:
"His name is Dan and he was with his Japanese wife Nobye in Kuta
on Saturday night. I have not heard from them since the bomb."

A Londoner and former member of Hong Kong Rugby Football Club
said he feared 10 of his former team mates were dead.

"Our only hope is that they spent their last moments living
life to the full as we remember them," he wrote.

Some messages appealing for information went unanswered,
perhaps because no one dared.

"Can anyone help locate Ian Findley, age 55, from the
northeast of England, last seen in the Sari Club when the bomb
went off?" asked a Briton who identified herself only as Julie.

She had clearly not seen an article in the Times on Tuesday in
which Findley's friend Ian Stafford described the last time he
had seen him among the carnage and confusion of the explosions.

"I have never seen anything like it in my life -- there were
piles and piles of charred bodies," said Stafford. "Ian must have
taken the full blast."

Ronaldo from Bali told of the loss of his Ecuadorian
girlfriend Ana Cecila Aviles: "It has been very difficult at the
hospital, with so many unrecognizable bodies, burned beyond
recognition," he wrote. "I'm grateful that my Ana's body is still
so beautiful."

But for every tale of loss, there were many more of hope and
reconciliation. "Looking for news about best mate Joe Griffiths,"
wrote Roland from France.

"Roland in France, don't worry about Joe Griffiths," came the
swift reply from Melanie Coene in England. "He is in Thailand and
fine."