Indonesians would break out into riots for almost any reason it seems. Previously it was because they couldn’t get tickets for the epic SEA Games football finals between our Harimau Malaya and the Garudas, now it’s because of a smartphone — specifically the Blackberry Bold 9790.
Over 3,000 BlackBerry crazed Indonesians turned-up at a special event at the Pacific Place shopping mall in Jakarta where the Bold 9790 will be sold. To make certain people came in droves, BlackBerry decided to throw in a 50% discount to the first 1000 devices sold. To up the desirability factor even further, RIM made Indonesia the first country in the world where it will sell the BlackBerry Bold 9790.
Naturally for these sort of things, people were already standing in line from the day before and the number of people had grown to well over a thousand people by the time the event was about to kick off. Things were already very tense but the tipping point happened when rumours started going around that the Bold 9790 had already sold out even before sale started. This infuriated the restless crowd which by now have grown to over 3,000 people.
In desperation the frustrated crowd started to breakdown barriers erected at the event venue to get their hands on the Bold 9790. Fearing a riot, the organisers called in the riot police. Hundreds were deployed to control the situation. The massive crowd also caused a major traffic congestion in a city where traffic is already very bad on a normal day.
While the polisi managed to stop a riot from breaking out, quite a number of people where injured in the incident, some even lost consciousness on the scene due to overcrowding. Eventually, the event had to be closed prematurely for the people’s own safety.
Them Indonesians really love their BlackBerrys don’t they.
Watch the pandemonium on video after the jump.
