'Blogs' give first person account of earthquake

The grief is too much to bear. Children could account for half the death toll which is now approaching 70,000. Weblogs worldwide are monitoring developments and giving first hand experiences of the disaster: Read personal accounts from Asia as well as numerous international links to blogs across the whole political spectrum.

Traditional media once again acknowledges the value of the blogosphere:

The Internet has quickly become the eyes and ears of the tsunami disaster. Over the past few days, news reports, amateur videos, dispatches from survivors and fundraising efforts have become part of the dialogue in the so-called blogosphere, the part of the World Wide Web that includes anything from personal diaries to political campaigns. Full article by Lisa Priest in Globetechnology on The Globe and Mail

In a generous gesture, Chatbar announces a free SMS service to help contact families and friends affected by Asian earthquake.

Kenneth Zammit Tabona appeals for Maltese generosity:

The world is responding and so must we. We are all in the same boat; today it's them, maybe tomorrow, God preserve us, it may be us. We are not privileged beings. We live in a seismic zone too. We therefore have no right to profess or have any sympathy for racist creeds that from time to time raise their ugly heads throughout our planet's sad history. These creeds are the personification of evil. As we clearly saw, despite our technology and power we are as weak as newly born kittens when compared to the infinite forces of nature.

The time for giving is indeed now. I am sure that there will be a national appeal to alleviate the sufferings and assuage the losses of all those thousands if not millions of people like ourselves who have been directly or indirectly affected by the disaster. This is the time to stand up and be counted by digging deep into our pockets without counting the cost and forgetting our usually rather depleted January budgets. This is a world tragedy and we must not fail to respond to it like we always have. We Maltese have big hearts and limitless resourcefulness; how else would we have survived and thrived throughout the millennia of colonialism as well as we did?


The Malta Independent reports on 19 Maltese people still missing.