Web provides hope

Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG: Distraught relatives and friends of those missing after the most catastrophic tsunami on record are increasingly turning to the Internet to search for loved ones.

In Hong Kong and Singapore to Australia, Britain, the United States and Sweden, people are scanning through lists of names of victims and posting bulletins to look for those missing.

"Today I am still searching the hospitals," said James Wong from Hong Kong, as he looked through names and pictures of victims posted on the Internet by hospitals in Phuket.

Wong is in Phuket to search for his daughter Rubina Wong, who was on nearby Phi Phi Island with her fiance when the sea swept over the tiny island.

"But I still harbour hope. Some people have been found even after hanging in a tree for a day," Wong told Hong Kong television reporters on Thursday.

The Thai government has also set up Web sites listing names of victims from the disaster

(http://www.phuketitcity.com, http://www.disaster.go.th, http://www.narenthorn.or.th).

Of the hundreds of bulletins posted on one of these sites, a handful had good news for some.

"Now we can find the name of Miss Anneli Laitinen from Finland, but we're not quite sure that she is the same person you are looking for. I'm happy to inform you that she's still alive but injured," read a message posted on a page for people looking for loved ones in Krabi in Thailand.

Visitors to the sites have also posted heart-wrenching messages looking for their parents, siblings and friends.

Other Web sites collating information and news about the disaster, aid and volunteer efforts have also sprung up, such as http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com.

Aid agencies, such as the Red Cross and Oxfam, have also appealed for donations, which can be made quickly online (http://www.redcross.org.hk, http://www.oxfam.org.hk)

"Since the appeal went out on December 27, we have had responses online. People can also download forms from the Internet and fax it back to us. Others have also made donations directly to our accounts or sent checks," said a spokeswoman for Red Cross in Hong Kong.

It has collected $4.1 million to date, which it will use to supply food, medicine and sleeping materials to disaster victims.

MANY, MANY MISSING

Thousands of foreigners had been holidaying at southern Thailand when they went missing after a 9.0 magnitude undersea quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The quake triggered tsunamis that slammed into Indonesia, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and other countries as far away as Africa, killing more than 90,000 people.

Officially, only 212 foreign tourists have been reported as killed by their home countries, but Thailand alone has said that at least 435 foreigners had died there.

Some 1,500 Swedes, 1,000 Germans, 600 Italians, 464 Norwegians, 294 Singaporeans, 277 Hong Kong residents, 219 Danes, 200 Finns and 200 Czechs have been reported as missing by their governments.

Valerio Natale, a 14-year-old Italian student, said two missing Italian holidaymakers -- Dario Collodi and Liliana Giordanino -- have already been found thanks to postings on his web page http://www.tuttosimpsons.altervista.org/index.htm.

The site is devoted almost entirely to Italian citizens who disappeared in Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and India.

"I was paging through the newspaper and saw lots of ads from people looking for relatives," Natale told Reuters. "I asked myself, 'Why not make a free site that can help everybody?' So I made a free site, which used to be dedicated to the famous American cartoon family, the Simpsons."