For relatives of American, painful news

CAIRO --Tony Miller kept pressing the redial button on his phone, willing his daughter to pick up as he stared at the television reports of explosions in Sharm el-Sheik, the Egyptian resort where Kristina and her British boyfriend were celebrating her birthday.

''It was horrible, I knew something was wrong," said Miller, a Las Vegas native living in Britain. ''My best hope was that they were hurt and unconscious. I just never thought in a million years that Kristi would be gone."

Frantic for answers, he flew to Egypt, only to be told by US Embassy officials yesterday that Kristi had been confirmed dead. They described her tattoos, and he knew it was his daughter who had marked her 27th birthday the day before the bombs hit.

Three blasts hit Sharm el-Sheik just after 1 a.m. Saturday, killing 88 people, including at least 17 foreigners. It was not known which one killed Kristi and her boyfriend, Keri Davies.

They were staying at a Hilton hotel several hundred yards from the Ghazala Gardens hotel, which was hit by one of the car bombs, leveling its lobby.

Davies's parents confirmed that they were informed that their son, whose 29th birthday was a few days earlier, was also killed.