No Gmail, no Yahoo!, no blogs

Quake shakes up the Net
Dec 27: Earthquake and the Internet
In the midst of floods and earthquake, millions of people in Asia "cried" over not being able to access their mails, and update blogs!

Malaysian bloggers interviewed by the local dailies claimed to be "disconnected" and "emotionally affected" by the disruption in internet services on Wed Dec 27, 2006 when an earthquake (of magnitude 7.1) hit Taiwan.

The earthquake damaged submarine cables that form part of the region-wide Asia Pacific Cable Network 2, disrupting voice and Internet communications over much of Asia. The APCN 2 is a 19,000km-long fibre-optic cable network linking Japan, South Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Europe and Australia. Many some good thign will come out from thsi experience.

Repairs to the cables are underway, and in the meantime, we have to accept that blogs will take a longer time to publish.

Actually, the concerns should be over the quake victims in Taiwan, and also to the flood victims in one of the badly hit Malaysian state (Johor) which, at the time of wrting, is still under flood waters since Dec 20. Spare a thought also to the shop-owners whose shop was inundated with flood waters and rendering the stock un-saleable?

Floods Dec 19 Even my childhood home in Malacca was under flood waters since Wednesday December 19. The flood waters went as high as 1 feet inside the house, and we were forced to evacuate to friend's house nearby for a few days. The water subsided only on Saturday Dec 23.

So on Christmas Eve Dec 24, we spent the whole day time cleaning mud and debris from the floors and walls, and throwing away water-soaked cupboards, books, magazines.

Christmas Day was truly rest day for us. Grateful that our damage was not so great compared to other places. There are some places which is still under flood waters as I write this.

In the state of Johor where it first started, the flood waters went as high as the first floor of a double-storey house, or up to the roof of a single-storey house. An entire town is cutoff from the rest of the country. Electricity supply was cut off - and this affected the communication between affected and the family members elsewhere. The mobile phone battery could not be charged.

Some bloggers resort to getting help through the internet - to get medication delivered to their aged parents stranded therein. Luckily they got the help requested.

It seems like the weather doesn't favour Asian countries during the yearends. In 2004, Asian countries were hit by Tsunami, where thousands died. Read the story about the miracle 22-day old baby who survivied the Tsunami ordeal, two years ago.

In both the two disasters to hit this part of the world, the internet played a part to connect family members and also allowed other people to have an immediate updates of the situation. People are embracing the internet for good!

Go away floods! Come back sunny weather!