The tsunami in Phuket left Paola di Maio with little more than 4 liters of water but, crucially, an Internet connection. As the information systems designer and her friends helped with the rescue effort while helicopters buzzed overhead, she realized that one thing was missing: information.
Together with Dina Mehta, Peter Griffin and a small band of other Internet enthusiasts in the region, including students from New Delhi and a TV producer in Sri Lanka, Di Maio set up SEA-EAT, the South East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami weblog. Visited by 21,000 people Tuesday, it has fast become the key online clearing house for people to share information and contact details.
While government hotlines jam or ring unanswered and international aid efforts appear uncoordinated, desperate relatives have gone online to search for their loved ones or simply to help the aid effort.
At the scene of the disaster, survivors have also bypassed official communication channels. As well as virtual noticeboards, hundreds of actual noticeboards have sprung up. Names, numbers, photographs and appeals for information about missing friends and relatives have been pinned up outside hospitals and beside resorts in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and India.
The founders of the virtual rescue centers such as SEA-EAT are not surprised that people are turning to the Internet, with its instantly and succinctly published information offering everything from contact numbers of consulates to details about how to get a portable toilet.
"The Internet is being used more and more by the families of victims because it is faster and the communication is much more effective," said Ankit Gupta, one of SEA-EAT's volunteers based in New Delhi. "One always comes across red tape no matter what in our third world countries."
Di Maio said governments and aid agencies could use the Web far more.
"The Internet, reasonably reliable and fast, is not used by authorities nor rescue services to communicate, despite the fact that it has been up without interruption during the entire crisis. Governments and authorities should use the Internet as we do. Costs would be lower and results much better coordinated."
Another online volunteer, Bala Pitchandi, stayed up until midnight at his home in New Jersey in the US helping to publish information on SEA-EAT.
"Blogging is such a powerful tool since it can be used by ordinary people like me to publish views and news," he said. "Dozens of volunteers who have never met have gotten together to start this and many of the contributors are there at the scene to help the world know what's really going on."
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS