Staring blankly at the pile of rubble that once housed the Sari Club, Peter Chworowsky shook his head and hugged his fellow rugby players.
Teammate Kelvin Bezuidenhout sobbed as a group of Balinese threw rose petals on the site of Saturday's bomb blast. Behind the charred remains of a nearby pub, someone sang Amazing Grace.
This memorial Tuesday marked the end of a chapter for the Taipei Baboons, a tight-knit expatriate rugby club based in Taiwan. It was a chance to say goodbye to the four teammates and a female fan they lost, and reflect on how the terrorist attack changed their lives.
"I feel mostly sadness for the guys that didn't get out," said Chworowsky, a 43-year-old American businessman from Lakeville, Wisconsin who was left partially deaf from the blast. "But I'm also sad for the terrorists. I'm trying to figure out why they would do that, how their minds would get so screwed up that they would bomb a nightclub."
More than 180 people were killed and 300 wounded in the car-bomb attack on the popular nightclub. Indonesian officials suspect the al-Qaeda terrorist network carried out the bombing.
Rugby teams -- in town for a weekend tournament -- appear to be among the hardest hit. Chwor-owsky said many players spent the weekend at the Sari Club, and at least three teams he has talked to lost a combined total of up to 15 players.
Among them was the Hong Kong Football Club, which confirmed Tuesday that it lost two players and that five other players and two female fans remain missing.
Twenty members of the Taipei team arrived in Bali Thursday and Friday and hung out at the Sari Club and nearby Paddy's.
They played three games Saturday, had dinner and headed for the Sari Club around 10pm. Packed with mostly young Australian and European tourists, it seemed like a typical night out -- until the crowd heard a loud bang around 11:30pm.
Most turned around to see an orange glow coming from Paddy's, where a first bomb exploded. Seconds later, a second, more powerful explosion tore into the Sari Club. It knocked many patrons unconscious, caused the roof to collapse and sparked a fire that consumed the bar within minutes.
The stunned players found themselves covered in concrete or pieces of the roof. They smelled smoke and heard the crackling of the fast-moving fire.
"It was pitch black and you could see the glow of the fire illuminating the room," said Scott Murphy, a 29-year-old Australian from Brisbane whose brother, Max, also survived. "I just started grabbing people and pulling them to their feet."
Nearby, Chworowsky found himself on his back, being trampled on. He got up and saw the main entrance blocked by thick smoke and flames. Bodies were everywhere and screams filled the air.
"I remember thinking `this is what war is like,'" he said.
Chworowsky scrambled out through a hole in a wall. He soon realized that at least five of the 12 players at the club had not come out.
"When I was standing on the street, I was thinking anyone who did not get out was probably gone," he said.
The teammates later searched for the missing, but found only one injured player at a hospital.
The Taipei team's lost members -- James Hardman, 28, of Sydney; Daniel Braden, 28, of Brighton, England; Godfrey Fitz, 39, and Craig Harty, 35, both of South Africa; and Eve Kuo, 24, of Taiwan -- will leave a gaping hole in the club that players described as their extended family.
Fitz was the smooth-talking teacher, who had been a soccer star in South Africa. Braden was the wacky dresser with the dry sense of humor. Hardman was the surfer who couldn't stop talking about Australia. And Harty was a family man who had just recovered from the death of his brother and illness of his mother.
"You couldn't have asked for better mates than these guys," Boyden said.
The surviving club members said they have all decided one thing -- that the club will eventually take to the field again.
"This is what we loved to do with these guys," Max Murphy said. "That's what they would have wanted."
The team plans to hold a private memorial service on Yangmingshan this Sunday.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
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