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This site has now
been closed for further updates. The forums will remain
readable and searchable for some time before it's taken
offline. All forums have been moderated with our best
efforts. If you find posts in the forum that should
be removed please send us an e-mail HERE
One forum remains
open for posting final remarks here,
please, no new information about missing persons, for
that please visit the ICRC
Website
- ENTER
THE FORUM HERE
- READ A COLLECTION OF MEDIA CLIPPINGS
Thailand/Sweden/Norway - January 7th, 2005:
On 26th December 2004
when the tsunami hit Asia two men took the initiative
to establish a website so that relatives overseas could
search for information about family and friends missing
in Thailand. Mike Cegielski, an American living in Phuket,
and Steve White, an Englishman also living in Phuket,
started working on creating the Phuket Tsunami Disaster
Forum. Steve manages the Thailand office of web hosting
company 3iX, the site was hosted on their US based servers.
Shortly after announcing
the service it spread by word of mouth and through the
media and the load was more than the servers could handle.
People were desperate for information and turned to
the internet. The governments overseas where paralyzed
and offered no official source of information.
With the enormous
traffic to the forum Steve made contact with Leif Hellström
from Sweden and Andreas Hoistad from Norway. Through
Leif another contact was made with the SOLACE Computer
Society in Sweden. They offered to provide computer
resources located at the Mid Sweden University. A 12
CPU SUN server together with a 4 CPU SUN server on loan
from the Swedish Social Security Ministry were made
available to handle the enormous load the website experienced.
During the first week the forum almost constantly had
3-4000 simultaneous users online.
In the 10 days the
site had millions of unique visitors and a total of
15,000 messages were posted in the forum.
As time went by the
success stories started to come; Stories of relatives
who had been able to establish contact with their family
or friends through he forum. Stories of relatives who
where able to locate the body of their deceased relative.
The forum
had served a purpose.
This private initiative
came quick in a time where official authorities and
international aid organizations where unprepared and
unable to provide such a service. Thai authorities and
hospitals continuously posted enormous amounts of information
in Thai or English on dozens of different websites.
Now we hope that we can refer all those affected by
this disaster to the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as they are getting
up and running with their database.
This initiative, along
with many similar initiatives, shows the power of internet.
Thousands, or millions, of people have put their time
and effort in trying to help those affected by this
tragedy. The mass of information that has been made
available through hospitals, media and other websites
has been reviewed and people have searched for information
for each other. And it gave results.
The site became known
thanks to media coverage. International news agencies
and national media made this possible. Some of what
was written about this forum can be found on Google
Despite certain media
reports; this forum has not had any financial interests
what so ever. It has not been involved in donations,
not received donations, there has been no advertising
or compensation. It has solely been based on voluntary
work from people wanting to help.
Finally, having worked
with this for the last 1 1/2 week we would strongly
recommend that all the volunteers out there trying with
their best efforts to assist in the process of identifying
all the bodies of the unidentified victims coordinate
their work with either local authorities or the Red
Cross. This work needs to be lead by professionals and
this work can be very distressful. We will also strongly
warn against publishing images of deceased victims on
the internet as it might have dramatically impacts on
relatives, innocent kids surfing the net and others.
After careful consideration
we have now decided to shutdown the forum. We believe
it has served its purpose. The 15,000 posts will remain
readable and searchable, but no new postings will be
possible. One forum on the site will remain open; a
forum called “Final thoughts…”.
To all those that
lost someone in the Tsunami: Our thoughts and prayers
are with you in this time of crisis. We hope we have
been of help to you.
Our thanks to everyone
who has helped out making the forum what it became.
Especially we thank our moderators and our friends at
Solace.
January 7, 2005
Steve
White, Thailand
Leif Hellström, Sweden
Andreas Hoistad, Norway
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Steve
White, Thailand
Leif
Hellström, Sweden
Andreas
Hoistad, Norway
