Hong Kong players anxiously await teammates' fate

What remains of the Sari Club

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HONG KONG, China -- Still shaken, and with some nursing injuries, about 30 members of a Hong Kong rugby tour returned to the Chinese territory from Bali fearful that seven missing team members and two supporters were dead.

Like many rugby players, supporters and referees visiting the Indonesian island for an annual two-day Rugby Tens tournament, it was meant to be a weekend of fun, rugby and drinking.

Two bombs that ripped through Bali's Kuta Beach nightspot changed all that.

The Sari Club -- one of the favorite drinking locations for tournament participants and other international tourists -- was jam packed with an estimated 800 revelers Saturday night at the time a huge car bomb exploded, reducing the venue to a mass of rubble and twisted metal littered with blackened corpses.

The blast left more than 180 people dead, hundreds injured and over 200 are listed as missing.

The Hong Kong Vandals rugby team had arrived at the club, the meeting point for that night's festivities, only moments before.

Two other Hong Kong-based teams, the DEA and the Pot-Bellied Pigs, were outside in the street making their way to the venue.

"We were heading right over there and were about 400 meters away when we heard the big bang. There was nothing we could do," one player told the South China Morning Post.

"There was glass flying everywhere and there were bodies, bits of bodies, strewn around in front of us."

"We just jumped out of the cab and ran -- two minutes later the taxi was burning up. The heat must have just combusted the whole thing."

Missing are Britons Thomas Hamby-Holmes, 39, Dan Miller, 31, Stephen Speirs, 35, Edward Waller, 26 (British/Thai) and Clive Walton, 33.

American player Jake Young, 34, and supporters Anika Linden, 29, from Britain and German Bettina Brandes, 28, are also unaccounted for.

Family members have flown to Bali to offer dental records and DNA samples to help identify many of the unknown victims, the Post reported.

The Hong Kong Football Club has sent two representatives to assist in the search for details on the missing touring party members.

"Representatives of the club and the [Hong Kong Rugby Football Union] are still working with authorities in Bali and Australia to clarify the situation," Club general manager Mark Pawley was quoted as saying by the Post.

Authorities in Bali are compiling private details of every footballer including height, weight and tattoos or other identifying features in an effort to identify remains – many of which are charred beyond recognition.

With each passing hour, hopes were fading for those missing.

"We're all just waiting. Waiting to see if we can take anything of our mates back home, to help out when the relatives arrive, just seeing what we can do. It's tough on all of us," a Club member in Bali told the Post.

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