Day Three
Well, hello world.
Here is another picture from Point Pedro, which is the northernmost point of Sri Lanka to be hit by the tsunami. Thank you on behalf of the hard-hit people here for your concern and interest in this situation. I'm sorry not to have kept you posted, but I have been busy. I promise the next photograph will be of something more positive.
I would counsel against watching the news over and over. We all know it's numbing. And please remember that the pictures you are seeing are from the areas that happen to be accessible and happen to be where holiday-makers go. The other places are pretty messy too, unfortunately, and were generally a lot humbler to start with.
Thousands of families are staying in schools inland, and the local response has been very generous with food and clothing. The next job is to prevent disease.
It's certainly heartening to see evidence of community values that some considered endangered before this happened. I would like to mention in particular Jaffna University's medical students, who have volunteered en masse and are busy doing vital work in Jaffna and the Vanni. I even met a team of 40 leaving for Batticaloa yesterday.
The funerals have begun, and more bodies are still being recovered. A huge effort is just getting started to help families find out what has happened to their missing relatives. As one of many measures, there is now a Red Cross website to help with this.
On a personal note, I can say that this may be an unexpected challenge and responsibility, and it hurts to see people in pain, but it's also a remarkable experience to be on hand to do something modest but useful in the aftermath of a disaster. And I have the tremendous privilege to be working alongside a team of very professional, experienced, flexible, committed, good natured, level-headed people. Everybody has stepped up, as you New Yorkers like to say.
Lastly, please could someone (Anthony?) tell me how I can read the NY Times article without spending precious time registering? [Extra: done! thanks.]
I've gone on too long - an audience an orator does not make.
26 Comments:
Is this the same NYT article?
http://news.com.com/Blogs+provide+raw+details+from+disaster+scene/2100-1038_3-5505092.html?tag=nl
Thanks, that's the one. If anyone from NYT and/or CNET happens to read this, please respect my anonymity and edit out my surname (which is in any case incorrect). Thank you.
I'm one of the many who has been directed here via the NY Times article and I wanted to thank you for posting whatever information you can about this horrible tragedy. While I've begun donating what money I can to relief organizations, I believe it's blogs like yours that humanize an all too inhuman disaster and inspire people across the globe to help out in whatever way they can. Good luck to you and everyone else and continue to keep us posted.
Barry Wolborsky
NY, NY
December 28, 2004
THE INTERNET
Blogs Provide Raw Details From Scene of the Disaster
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.
The so-called blogosphere, with its personal journals published on the Web, has become best known as a forum for bruising political discussion and media criticism. But the technology proved a ready medium for instant news of the tsunami disaster and for collaboration over ways to help.
There was the simple photo of a startlingly blue boat smashed against a beachside palm in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, at www.thiswayplease.com/extra.html. "Every house and fishing boat has been smashed, the entire length of the east coast," wrote Fred Robart, who posted the photo. "People who know and respect the sea well now talk of it in shock, dismay and fear."
At sumankumar.com, Nanda Kishore, a contributor, offered photos and commentary from Chennai, India: "Some drenched till their hips, some till their chest, some all over and some of them were so drenched that they had already stopped breathing. Men and women, old and young, all were running for lives. It was a horrible site to see. The relief workers could not attend to all the dead and all the alive. The dead were dropped and the half alive were carried to safety."
His postings included a photo of a body on a sidewalk with a buffalo walking by. "It now seems prophetic," he wrote, "for according to the Hindu mythology, Lord Yama (the god of death) rides on a buffalo."
Bloggers at the scene are more deeply affected by events than the journalists who roam from one disaster to another, said Xeni Jardin, one of the four co-editors of the site BoingBoing.net, which pointed visitors to many of the disaster blogs.
"They are helping us understand the impact of this event in a way that other media just can't," with an intimate voice and an unvarnished perspective, with the richness of local context, Ms. Jardin said.
That makes blogs compelling - and now essential - reading, said Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University and a blogger. Once he heard about the disaster, "Right after BBC, I went to blogs," he said.
"This notion that we now have eyes and ears around the world is more than something we've grown accustomed to; we've grown to demand it," he said.
Bloggers at worldchanging.com, some of them living in the affected nations, began chattering immediately after the waves hit and began discussions of ways to help. South Asian bloggers created tsunamihelp blogspot.com to direct people to aid organizations. "I haven't seen this level of people saying, 'You know what? We can do something here. We can connect the pieces,' " said Alex Steffen, who lives in Seattle and edits worldchanging.com. "It's mind-blowing, and it's inspiring."
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 said.
One veteran of the online medium said he was initially "a little disappointed" in the reports he got from the blogs. Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future in California, said that with the widespread use of digital cameras and high-speed digital access, he was expecting to see more raw video and analysis.
He said that upon reflection he realized that it was difficult to get information out of hard-hit areas and that putting digital video online is still the domain of "deep geeks" with significant resources. "This brought home to me just how far we have to go," he said.
Ms. Jardin of BoingBoing said people online often argued about whether blogs would replace mainstream media. The question is as meaningless, she said, as asking "will farmers' markets replace restaurants?"
"One is a place for rich raw materials," she continued. "One represents a different stage of the process."
Blogging from the tsunami, she said, is "more raw and immediate," but the postings still lack the level of trust that has been earned by more established media. "There is no ombudsman for the blogosphere," she said. "One will not replace the other, but I think the two together are good for each other."
Dr. Vaidhyanathan said he was leaving for a long-planned trip to India today and, if possible, hoped to visit relatives in Madras. "As long as there is electricity and Internet access, I'll blog," he said.
Thank you so much for taking the time to report. I am sending you and your family love right now.
Dan Workman
Our prayers and thoughts are with you all. May God bless you all and bring comfort to all those that are affected by this terrible disaster.
Btw, to view the New York Times article, you can go to http://news.com.com/Blogs+provide+raw+details+from+disaster+scene/2100-1038_3-5505092.html?tag=nl (no registration required).
Be careful who you give money to. Please give to reputable organizations only. There are many good ones. The Sri-Lanka embassy can help too. Go to http://www.slembassyusa.org/ for information.
Also, see http://www.slembassyusa.org/press_releases/winter_2004/tsunami%20disaster.html
Give generously please. According to the embassy web site, some Sri-Lankan American already gave a quarter million dollars.
Wishing you all well. God's Peace.
www.bugmenot.com will help you log-in to the NYT without going through all that registering silliness.
Just registered you to NYT as
ID fredfred
password extrajaffna
Use it 'til you got time to create your own.
Paul, Budapest, Hungary.
If you go to www.bugmenot.com, you can find an archive of names/passwords for various news sites such as nytimes.com. Thanks for all your work.
With deepest sympathy from Hartford, Connecticut USA. I'll be paying the international charities' websites a visit. My thoughts are with all the suffering and bereaved around the Indian Ocean. Please tell us what we can do.
Please help.
Searching for dear friend,
Gordon Bleck
Caucasian, well known permanent resident of Getangama, Ratnapura.
Just returned to Sri Lanka on approx. Dec 24.
Have not had any word.
Name Gordon Bleck
Age: 56 (looks younger)
Hair Brown
Eyes Brown
Height approx 5’10’’
Caucasian
We would appreciate any information regarding Gordon Blecks welfare and or any information about the status of the Ratnapura area. Such as Flooding, telephone communication etc.
If at all possible, please contact anyone you may know in the Ratnapura area and have them contact me at this email address if they have the least information about Gordon Bleck or the Ratnapura area.
Many family and friends concerned.
Thank you.
Bunnylake111@hotmail.com
My heart goes out to you and all the suffering. Images say so much more than words at a time like this when the whole world is reeling. Too listen and watch the horror is never to much because we all forget too quickly. Your images will remain in many people's minds for years to come. Well done - keep your spirits up if you can.
There's no words to describe the felling I have inside... God bless u!!!
Julianna - Brazil
www.fotolog.net/julianna_maria
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
We, in Brazil, are shocked with so big tragedy. We hope that God look for you, specilly the still missing people, including brasilians. Peace and faith for your souls.
Igor Cardoso - Piauí-Brazil
There a Link in brazilian newspaper "Folha de São Paulo" to your blogg
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u17764.shtml
(Post | www.pigdesign.rg3.net)
We are watching with pain and attention your situation, my friend. I'm from Rome, Italy and i'm with you and your people. Good luck for everything.
[Ste]
Hi...
I so sorry about Asia disaster..
and I pray for all people of Asia where the tsunami has been victims
I´m from Brasil and I pray for all...
I´m sorry...I think our country sent any aid for that area...I´m sure about that!!
Thanks
Janete from São Paulo - Brasil
we are all whit your people!
Voltaire said it well way back then:
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/letters/24.11.1755.html
The Earthquake of Lisbon," on All Saints' Day, 1755, which destroyed
thirty thousand persons in six minutes, drew from Voltaire not only
the mockery of Candide, but one of the most beautiful and serious of
his writings, The Poem of on the Disaster of Lisbon. The disaster is
the subject of many of his letters of this period, and profoundly
touched his soul.
Les Délices, November 24, 1755
This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it
difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful
disasters in the best of all possible worlds-- where a hundred
thousand ants, our neighbours, are crushed in a second on our
ant-heaps, half, dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath
débris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all
over Europe reduced to beggary, and the fortunes of a hundred
merchants -- Swiss, like yourself -- swallowed up in the ruins of
Lisbon. What a game of chance human life is! What will the preachers
say -- especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! I
flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have
been crushed just like other people. That ought to teach men not to
persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a
few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. I believe it
is our mountains which save us from earthquakes.
UPDATED, December 26, 2004
"We shall find it
difficult to discover how the laws of plate techtonics movement
operate in such fearful seismic disasters in the best of all possible
worlds -- where a 200,000 ants, our neighbors, are crushed in a second
on our ant-heaps, half, dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies,
beneath débris from which it was impossible to extricate them,
families all over Asia reduced to beggary in
the ruins of the Great 2004 Tsunami. What a game of chance human life
is! What will the preachers say -- especially if the Palace of the
Inquisition is left standing! I flatter myself that those reverend
fathers, the Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like other
people. That ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few
sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and
swallows up all alike.
FOUND OUR FRIEND IN SRI LANKA!
Yesterday we posted a plea at this blog for information regarding our friend Gordon Bleck in Ratnapura. This morning we finally recieved an email from him. He has survived and searching for other missing friends.
This blog really helped us to feel like we were at least doing something while we waited for news. Thank you for being here!
Our thoughts and prayers are with so many others waiting for information about their loved ones.
God Bless
I'm glad for you (and your friend, of course). Anyone else who still has not had news from people who were visiting one of the 'affected areas', please try through your embassy. For nationals, various national helplines have been set up, and there's a Red Cross family links website at icrc.org
Thanks for posting this! For those who want to help out... I have added some Christian mission relief links to: www.heartformissions.net
You are reporting with much respect and empathy. Thanks. Hope they work out a good warning system (Japanese children learn in first school year what to do when there is a tsunami warning ~~~~////~____)Judith, Switzerland
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