Greetings,
The OP was correct about the location. It was at the Border Police Subdivision and not at the army barracks.
Thankfully, the Wat Chumphon Sutthawat was safe as it is located roughly 5km NE from the ammo depot. The location of the event was about 1km NW from the Hwy 214 and bypass ring 293 junction at the south end of Surin City.
And it is far from being an empty site as many officers live on that large installation in apartment buildings.
I know this because we live right next door to that ammo depot (with only a 200m wide rice field between us and the depot). Until it had gone up into the sky, I thought that it was a tractor / machine shed for the border police.
Thankfully there were only light injuries as most people figured out very fast what was going on so we left our homes in a hurry — leaving everything behind. There were two buildings involved: one with small arms ammo only. That sounded like hundreds of fire crackers going off constantly. It was scary, but not so dangerous. The main issue was the building next to it which had RPG-s and mortar shells. Some even managed to get airborne somehow.
The propellant from the RPG-s was burning so hot that when I was walking away from our home (quite fast ;-) ), I could feel the heat radiation burning my back through my shirt.
We all got away just in time (hiding behind a neighbor’s home further down the road) as about 2 minutes later a bigger explosion generated such a powerful shock wave that it blew in the windows of our home that were facing the depot. The glass shattered into hundreds of small pieces. It also cracked our wooden kitchen door in half (right at the middle where the lock was; the top and bottom halves bending inward to allow the high pressure air to enter the house.
Windows on the other side of the house fared better as they were a hinged type. There the latches broke off and let the windows swing open so the built-up pressure in the house can be released.
Also, some sheet rock panels cracked and fell in the living room and multiple light fixtures on ceilings also decided to let go.
At some point the MP-s showed up and asked everyone to leave the area, so we had to spend the night at a resort. The border police and the army stationed guards at the homes in the evacuated area to prevent burglaries. They stayed until the next day when we were finally allowed to return home.
The response from the authorities was very quick. The next morning after we returned home, the electrical authority sent out bucket trucks with crews and repaired any damage to home wiring or fixtures. They remounted all the lights in the home we are renting here.
In the next group came some border police officers to assess damage to the homes, bringing with a team of doctors and nurses to evaluate any physical or psychological damage to the people here.
And a few days later they came back and replaced / rebuilt the damaged items in the house (doors, sheet rock, cracked walls, etc). I didn’t know that the border police had their own construction crew. I guess they need it looking at the size of the installation next to us.
My wife, my 13-year-old dog and I are OK. Thankfully as things could have been much worse if we stayed in the house for another couple of minutes.
I guess it is time for us to move further north in the province to be away from military installations.
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