Dieses Schlußstatement des Teams vom Phuket Disaster Forum ist mir heute per eMail zugegangen

http://www.p-h-u-k-e-t.com
 

Thailand/Sweden/Norway - January 7th, 2005:

On December 26th 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, who runs the local web hosting company 3ix.org in Phuket, hosted the website on his 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

Some thoughts from each of the persons behind the site:

Steve White:

“It has been a very sad time for me to see Phuket and Thailand, the place I live and love so much hurt in such a cruel way, I still can't beleive it. My thoughts are with the people of all countries who have lost family and loved ones, I can't begin to understand how you must be feeling now, I hope we were able to help some of you with our service. The Thai people need your support now more than ever, please don't stay away. Thailand is a fantastic country, caring people, great scenery, a ideal place to holiday or even make a life. Rahk Mahk Prathet Thai, chok dee.
Thanks to everyone who has been involved in the Message Board, especially to Leif, Andreas and everyone at Solace without who this wouldn't have been possible, it's been great to see people from many nations pulling together at a time of crisis.”

Leif Hellström:

“"Knowing that all the time and knowledge I've put into this has made a difference for people made it possible to last all these hours and I thank you all for your encouraging words."”

Andreas Hoistad:

“Having worked with this around the clock I am glad that my IT experience became useful in this crisis and knowing that I have helped those in need of help makes it all worth it. The conversations with some of the victims families being told that what we did meant something is what  I will remember for the rest of my life. My thoughts are with all those that lost their loved ones in this tragedy.”