At about 5 a.m, my husband said to one of the servants, who had faithfully stood by us, "Kill a chicken and cook some soup quickly; maybe we shall have to flee still further."

I wanted to go out and see what it was like. My husband said, "I shouldn't. It will only worry you." Naturally I went in spite of what he said. But what I saw then! Thousands of tongues of fire lit up the surroundings; some only small tongues, some longer. As they disappeared they left a greenish light. Others quickly filled their place. On tops of the trees I saw flames. I heard a crack and noticed a sheet of fire right by me. The sea was not to be seen. Everything was smothered in ash. I could not see my hand before me. I went into the house again. The soup was served. We started to eat and as far as I can remember there were 16 of us in the room.

Natives sent on reconnaissance by the controller at 6 a.m. returned to the hut to report that Ketimbang had disappeared. The tsunami had come sweeping in at 10:30 a.m.

Mrs. Beyerinck describes what happened next — the outermost edges of a pyroclastic flow enveloped her family and their acquaintances, killing many and sparing others.

Someone burst in shouting "Shut the doors, shut the doors!" Suddenly it was pitch dark. The last thing I saw was the ash being pushed up through the cracks in the floorboards, like a fountain.

I turned to my husband and heard him say in despair, "Where is the knife? The knife on the table. I will cut all our wrists and then we shall be sooner released from our suffering."

The knife could not be found. I felt a heavy pressure, throwing me to the ground. Then it seemed as if all the air was being sucked away and I could not breathe. Large lumps cluttered down on my head, my back and my arms. Each lump was larger than the others. I could not stand.

I don’t think I lost consciousness for I heard the natives praying and crying "Allah il Allah!"

I felt people rolling over me. I was kicked and felt a foot on part of my body. No sound came from my husband or children. Only part of my brain could have been working for I didn't realize I had been burnt and everything which came in contact with me was hot ash, mixed with moisture. I remember thinking, "I want to get up and go outside." But I could not. My back was powerless.

After much effort I did finally manage to get to my feet, but I could not straighten my back or neck. I felt as if a heavy iron chain was fastened around my neck and was pulling me downward.

Propping my hands on my knees, I tottered, doubled up, to the door. I knew it was in the corner. It was stuck fast. I fell to my knees in the ash.

Later I noticed that the door was ajar and I forced myself through the opening. I looked for the stairs. I tripped and fell. I realized the ash was hot and I tried to protect my face with my hands. The hot bite of the pumice pricked like needles.

My long hair, which reached to my knees, usually knotted into a tight bun, was loose.

Without thinking I walked hopefully forward. Had I been in my right mind I would have understood what a dangerous thing it was to do, to leave the vicinity of that house and plunge into the hellish darkness.

Then came sudden, terrifying stillness. When I had walked about 15 paces, still in my doubled-up position, I stubbed my toe on something very peculiar. I ran up against large and small branches and did not even think of avoiding them. I entangled myself more and more in that nightmare of branches, all entirely stripped of leaves.

My hair got caught up, and each time with a twist of the head I managed to free myself. Then something got hooked into my finger and hurt. I noticed for the first time that my skin was hanging off everywhere, thick and moist from the ash stuck to it. Thinking it must be dirty, I wanted to pull bits of skin off, but that was still more painful. My tired brain could not make out what it was. I did not know I had been burned. Worn out, I leaned against a tree.

She can hear nothing now, no human or animal, and she thinks she must be dead, and on the path to heaven or hell.

Was it imagination or did I hear something after all? I listened and heard, first dampened and then more clearly, someone shouting and screaming for me. Everything was once more clear in my mind. I recognized my husband’s voice calling me and shouting. Why was I dead and the rest of them still alive?

I heard Tojaka (clerk) say to him, "Master, be calm, the children are still alive."

I tried to shout, and at last succeeded in calling "I am live." I shouted loud and long, "I’m coming! I’m coming!" I couldn't find the way back, and ran in the opposite direction. But when I realized that my husband's voice got further and further away, I turned round again. Had I gone any further, I would have fallen into a ravine we discovered later.

The controller carried his wife to the hut. "Let us stay here and die together," he cried.

"No, we shall be rescued and taken to hospital in Batavia," she answered, hearing the sound of her own voice as if another person spoke. "Who knows whether Batavia still exists," he said.

Of the 3,000 natives who clustered around the hut, 1,000 died of burns and the skin of the survivors was blistered and burned. The body of one man was found weeks later sprawled in a sheet of pumice, arms spread, legs askew, just as he fell in panic-stricken flight.

Only in southeast Sumatra did Krakatoa claim lives with red hot ash and pumice; elsewhere it was the tsunami that killed.

Mrs. Beyerinck sat on the ground by the hut. The ayah gave her the youngest child. From the way his mouth was working, she could see he was very thirsty. She tried to give him her breast, but suddenly the child lay still in her arms. He was dead.

She felt him all over and laid her ear to his heart. She could hear nothing. "Thank God this child is at least put out of his agony," she told the ayah, who was crying bitterly. But Mrs. Beyerinck could not shed a tear. "Wrap the child in a blanket and lay it on the bed" she tried to say, but the frightful thirst caused by the hot ash dried the words in her throat.

There was still deep darkness. We couldn't light a fire, as matches were put out almost immediately. At last the head boy, the only remaining male servant, managed to start a small fire, and we began to hear signs of life from the people in the village, some of whom came to the light, asking for water. They were crazy from thirst and anxiety, so that it began to be dangerous for us. My husband said, "I have no weapons, but there is an axe behind the bed." The house boy fetched it. When my husband held it he said, "I cannot do anything with it. I have lost the use of my hand."

"Then give it to me," I said and clutched the axe. I was suddenly furious that my children's lives depended on it. I would have cut down the first person to stand in my way. When three men came toward the hut, the house boy advised us to put out the fire, as one of them was carrying a kris.

We quickly threw ash on the fire and again we were in darkness. I don't know how long we had been sitting when we saw people approaching, carrying torches. There must have been 30 of them. They shouted, "Sir, if you are still alive, come with us. We must leave because soon there will be more fire."

"From whence?" asked my husband.

"From Radja Bassa — look," they cried. We looked up and saw a ray of greenish light on the mountain.

"Wait for us, we'll get ready," said my husband.

Once again, the Beyerincks made to flee, mistakenly believing that the old volcano they stood on was about to join Krakatoa in erupting.

Mrs. Beyerinck saw that none of the female servants had enough strength to carry her 3½-year-old son, so she had him strapped to her back. Her husband led their daughter by the hand. Her hands and face were badly burned.

They descended the mountain and across the paddy fields below. The path had vanished, and even the largest trees had fallen. Mrs. Beyerinck suddenly realized the awful danger she had been in earlier. When she ran from the hut, she had been entangled in the roots of an enormous tree. She saw her footsteps from that time, and hanging on the tree were shreds from her sarong. Now, an enormous tree lay across the spot where she had stood.

She couldn't walk another step. The child was very heavy. Some people came up. They had survived the ashfall by bathing in a river. All their houses had collapsed, and most of the inhabitants of the district had been killed, they told the controller.

It started to rain again, no longer ash, but hot, heavy mud. The Beyerincks didn't dare return to their hut, because so many dead lay there. Mrs. Beyerinck sent a servant back instead, to bring down a large table, under which she placed the children — she and her husband lay on either side to protect them.

All this was done, she said, by the light from a tiny flame made by the house boy from a piece of felt roofing. She sent him to fetch water from the river. He returned saying it wasn’t fit to drink — it was all muddy.

"Perhaps it may be better in a couple of hours," he said, when the water from the well on the mountain cleared it. So it proved, but the water was still covered in ash. It quenched their thirsts, but "the more we drank, the thirstier we got," said Mrs. Beyerinck.

Luckily, she still had a bottle of orange syrup, and she mixed it with the water, giving everyone a drink from time to time.