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The Night the Sky Fell Down

On Monday, October 30, 1984, all of us living in the Cilandak and Pondok Indah area experienced a night of sheer terror. All of a sudden, the sound of distant firecrackers, a rather common sound on a typical evening in Jakarta, became loud enough for us to take notice. Liz Stamp, a High School Math teacher, recalls:

The night the ammunition dump exploded we'd just been visiting our neighbors in Cilandak Bawah when, walking home, we saw on the horizon what looked like an enormous bonfire. We stood for a while and wondered what event was being celebrated.
Soon many of us stood in the road with our homes behind us and the fire before us growing bigger, taller and hotter as the flames reached for the sky. There were also what seemed to be fireworks streaking out of the heart of the red and yellow ball of crackling and dancing color. We could not feel the heat, but the crackling was beginning to turn into loud and frightening explosions.
Then the whistling and whizzing started and we suddenly realized that the objects causing the strange loud, squeaky, whining, whirling sounds were passing right over our heads. We could not quite see them, but they were certainly zooming passed us in the darkness of the night, illuminated by the deep and powerful glow of what was, by now, a huge blazing inferno.
We had no idea what was happening and all headed indoors. Once inside we filled the bath full of water and opened all the windows. We had lived through civil unrest in El Salvador and knew that these were sensible things to do if explosions were in the air and electricity might be cut off.

We still did not know what the problem was but it was getting a lot worse. The "things" that were screaming and screeching through the air were ending their journeys with loud bangs and although I cannot remember any tremendous explosions as such it certainly sounded just the same as films that I had seen of "life in the trenches" during the First World War.
Inside the house I was scared stiff, making sure that we had candles everywhere although the electricity and the phone were all working perfectly. I think we spoke to people on the phone but we did not really know exactly what had or was happening. I feared the worse and was sure that these shells that were flying past were going to finish us off.

I sat on the floor, putting as many walls as possible between myself and the source of the fear - the shells. I was shaking like a leaf and the box of matches that I held in my hand was, I later realized, completely crushed! Mike meanwhile watched a video! It seems that he thought that the shell cases were empty and he was not too worried.
Later, when we had not been blown to smithereens, we went to bed. We were lucky in all ways, as there were many nearer to the blaze who lost their homes, and quite a few lost their lives. Where we were people had shell cases land on their roofs and in our house the blasts had caused part of our ceiling to collapse. The noise, smoke, and smell of burning really were quite dreadful.
As the thunder of explosions grew louder and nearer, I decided to investigate from a better vantage point and climbed up to the roof of our house at Jl. MPR Raya. As I stood in awe of the bright orange sky with streaks of bright yellow light shooting up from behind the rooftops, I first saw the huge explosion, and then felt the impact of hot air hitting me like a sledgehammer. If it hadnt been for a thin edge of the neighbors garden wall behind me, I would have been swept off the roof like a feather. I heard my back crack painfully against the jutting bricks, and on wobbly legs I climbed back down, screaming to the rest of the family to get out of the house.

Luckily, the sliding terrace doors had been left open, so nobody got hit with glass from shattered windows, as was the case in most houses on our street. We had no idea what was going on and watching the tide of local people streaming down the street from the direction of the fire didnt answer any questions. We were bewildered, like most other expatriates. Laura Schuster, a PE teacher at the Elementary School, remembers:

I roomed with Roseanna Miranda at that time and she was out, so I brought the household help and her family, and grabbed cans of tuna fish, some water, bread, bananas and my passport into the furthest back room. This was before handphones so our outside contact was limited. Many people were seen aimlessly walking with mattresses on heads - traveling to who knows wherever they perceived might be a safer haven.
It wasn't until a few days later that we discovered what had happened and even then it was all rather grey. Not having been in Indonesia for any length of time, I had no history to compare it with and figured this was one of the 'experiences' I was told about when moving to an international scene.

Hearing the high-pitched screech of flying ammunition, we decided to follow the flow of the locals and flee our area. Gene Magill, a High School Social Studies teacher, recalls his experience:

Living in Pondok Indah, I had just gone to bed when I heard loud noises from the room above me. I went upstairs to see what was going on and my housemate, Jim Herbert, walked out of his room and asked What are you doing down there?

Curiosity led us outside, where we could see a large fireball in the sky in the general direction of the school. Jim exclaimed, I must have left some chemicals out! We both thought the school was on fire. We soon found the truth as refugees from Cilandak came knocking on our door to escape the inferno.