Blogs Provide First-Hand Details from Tsunami Disaster Scene and Pinpoint Global Relief Efforts

"People who know and respect the sea well now talk of it in shock, dismay and fear, wrote Fred Robart on Thiswayplease.

The death toll has risen above 60,000 and bloggers including World Changing are providing first-hand reports and helping to coordinate relief efforts

Eyewitness accounts are here, here, here,

Arthur C Clarke who lives in Sri Lanka, says he and his family are safe, but many others are not so fortunate "the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow."

"Curiously enough," he writes, "in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean."

Howard Rheingold, the author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," about the use of interactive technologies like text-messaging to build ad hoc coalitions, said that using blogs to muster support for aid was a natural next step. "If you can smartmob a political demonstration, an election or urban performance art, you can smartmob disaster relief," he told The New York Times

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Posted by: Piers Fawkes at December 28, 2004 6:27 PM

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