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.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
The WHO ignored early COVID-19 warnings from Taiwan, US Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said on Friday, as part of justification for Washington withdrawing from the global health body. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said that the US was pulling out of the UN agency, as it failed to fulfill its responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WHO “ignored early COVID warnings from Taiwan in 2019 by pretending Taiwan did not exist, O’Neill wrote on X on Friday, Taiwan time. “It ignored rigorous science and promoted lockdowns.” The US will “continue international coordination on infectious
RSS