Johanna Beyerinck, her husband Willem and their three children lived in the coastal village of Ketimbang in the Lampong area of South Sumatra, only 25 miles north of the island of Krakatoa.

Mr. Beyerinck was employed as controller of Ketimbang, one of seven such Dutch colonial civil servants in the area. He had full authority over the Ketimbang District, where he was in charge of the police, tax collection, chairman of the district court and was generally responsible for the well-being of the population.

One of the most complete accounts of the 1883 eruption and its aftermath came from Johanna. The following story is drawn from Johanna's published diaries and notes written by the BBC from their research in attempting to re-create the disaster on film.

Summary of Events

Sunday, Aug. 26:

• Mr. and Mrs. Beyerinck attend the opening of a new market in Tjanti. Mrs. Beyerinck has a terrible feeling of foreboding, and doesn’t want to be there.
• At 1 p.m., at Mrs. Beyerinck's urging, they return home.
• Mrs. Beyerinck notices that Krakatoa is no longer visible. She pleads with her husband for the family to flee to their hut in Amboel Balik, on the slopes of Radja Bassa. He refuses, afraid the natives will create pandemonium if they see them fleeing.
• By 8 p.m., having seen the increasing height and violence of the waves, Mr. Beyerinck decides that they should prepare to flee to their hut.
• A tsunami strikes the house, destroying the staircase and all outbuildings, including the office where the controller and his clerk are working. The two men climb a tree to escape the water.
• At 8:30 p.m., the family begins the arduous journey to the hut, arriving at around midnight. Three thousand natives also seek refuge around the hut.

Monday,Aug. 27:

• After 5 a.m., Mrs. Beyerinck ventures outside and witnesses fires everywhere.
  
• Natives set off around 6 a.m. to Ketimbang and return to report that the10:30 a.m. tsunami has completely wiped away the town.
  
• The survivors at the hut are hit by a pyroclastic flow from the explosion at 10:02 a.m., suffering severe burns. Mrs Beyerinck's limbs are swollen to "three times their size." Her sarong is tattered and she is almost completely naked. Her 14-month-old baby makes an attempt to suckle, then dies. Her grief is silent.
  
• There is great animosity toward the Europeans — the natives blame them for the disaster, calling it a "judgement for your cruelty toward the Achimese."

It's difficult to work out from Mrs. Beyerinck's long and agonized story exactly what she and her husband saw and heard. They were less than 24 miles from the point of eruption.

Mrs. Beyerinck says she heard a distinct noise and noticed that Krakatoa was no longer visible, being surrounded by pitch-black clouds through which the sun looked blood red and its rays reddish. She doesn’t remark on the size or shape of the cloud or the intensity of the explosions, which others observed.

Between 1 p.m. on Aug. 26 and Sept. 1, when they were rescued, Mrs. Beyerinck underwent an experience that almost unhinged her mind.

Read on for her full account.