Charred and limbless bodies were strewn across the road as terrified foreign tourists, some with clothes on fire and drenched in blood, stumbled through the carnage.
In seconds the bustling nightspots in Bali's popular Kuta resort on Saturday night were transformed into an inferno which left at least 187 people dead and many more injured.
Two bombs erupted at 11 p.m., just as the nightclubs were beginning to fill up, and the restaurants and roads were brimming with people eating or strolling. Another bomb exploded near a US honorary consulate. The blast that did the most damage was a car bomb in front of the popular Sari nightclub.
"I was sitting at a table about 100 metres away when there was a mild explosion followed three or four seconds later by a very powerful one. I hurled myself to the ground," said Mr Karim Ansel (27), from Paris.
"Everybody was shouting and screaming, there was dust all over the place. Somebody asked me if an aeroplane had fallen on top of us," a shocked Mr Ansel, who arrived in Bali on holiday 10 days ago, said.
"As I came out I saw awful, awful things. One person was absolutely covered in blood, another woman was running with her clothes burned on to her body.
"A man was dressed only in his underpants and covered in blood, with his shoes in his hands. Other people were just completely traumatised." Mr Ansel said most of those injured were foreign tourists, although some Indonesian taxi drivers and parking attendants were hurt.
The explosion completely destroyed two nightclubs and many surrounding shops, blowing out windows in a 500-metre radius.
"There are charred and mangled bodies everywhere, it is unbelievable," said French photographer Mr Cyril Terrien at the scene.
"I have never seen such an appalling thing in my life. It is still burning. From where I was, I saw burned and mutilated bodies, this is really difficult to describe. The bodies of Indonesians and foreigners are lying side by side.
"People are stumbling around in the road as if they are in a trance. There were many people in this place because the Sari Club was one of the most popular nightspots here," said Mr Terrien.
He said the local rescue services were totally overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and struggled to ferry the injured to hospital around 15 kilometres away in the Bali capital, Denpasar.
The blast produced an intense blaze which burned for hours and gutted many buildings in the area as rescuers struggled to save injured people.
Australian tourist Ms Rachael Hughes (18) said she and her boyfriend had just arrived when the blast occurred, smashing the window of their hotel room.
"Standing in the foyer of the Bounty Hotel, people were just walking in, blood dripping off them, burns to their face, skin coming off them.
"It was really a terrible sight. You could just hear people crying up in the Bounty foyer - obviously they have lost loved ones or friends."
"I saw limbs lying on the ground," said Mr Richard Poore (37), from New Zealand, a television presentation director. He had tried to get into the Sari 20 minutes before the blast. But it was too full. He said there were hundreds of revellers inside.
"I got to the stage where I couldn't film any more because it made me feel physically ill. I've never seen anything like it in 12 years of reporting.
"There was corrugated iron flying everywhere. Our hotel is 700 metres away and we have lost windows, a couple of the rooms on the top floors, the ceilings have caved in. It's shocking. There are bodies everywhere and cars on fire." He said the area had been cordoned off by the army.
A local photographer said the main blast had wrecked up to 15 cars and been heard many kilometres away.
Almost unrecognisable vehicle wreckage littered the streets."The Sari club is gone. You can smell the bodies of those who died," he said.
The blaze was still burning fiercely as the sun rose on the shell-shocked island, which had until now managed to escape the violence that has wracked Indonesia since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998.
The authorities on the island were now bracing for an exodus of tourists.
"I am going to the airport. I want to take the first flight out, I can't stay here any more," said Mr Ansel.
The international departure hall at Bali's Ngurah Rai international airport was crowded with tourists, young and old, queuing at the counters, sitting on benches and on the floor of the hall. Buses carried groups of tourists hoping to catch the last flights of the day, seven to Australian destinations and three to Singapore. - (AFP, Reuters)