In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami disaster, people from all over the world are turning to the World Wide Web to connect with others.

Bloggers contributed much of the early reports from the disaster area. They also posted eyewitness accounts and photos.

On one such site, Andrew Sutton, a blogger who uses the name Shandy, wrote of his experience in Phuket:

"The whole scene had a surreal feel to it. There were people, like my wife and myself, gazing on the scene from our balconies," he said. "There was no panic, just puzzlement and the explanation of a 'big wave'."

In a later posting, Sutton explains that things slowly seem to be returning to normal in Thailand. "It is now over 48 hours after the tsunami struck," he writes.

"People are back on the sand lying on towels. A few of the beach side hotels and bars have opened again. The debris has been cleared from the main street and several buildings have been demolished. We have regular helicopter patrols overhead and the odd airplane."

Meanwhile, the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami site (SEA-EAT) blog has become a clearinghouse for disaster relief.

Peter Griffin, a writer and blogger living in Bombay came up with the idea. Rohit Gupta is one of three bloggers working on the site.

"We're getting out information that traditional media has not access to," Gupta told Information Week. "Certain areas have been cordoned off to traditional media by the Tamil Tigers," he said.

The site has 50 contributors from around the world and has had more than 100,000 visitors in the past few days.

For most blogs, 1,000 daily page views is considered fairly busy. Now, organizers are working to keep up with growth and demand.

On Thailand's Foreign Affairs website, there's a grimmer application of web technology. Officials provide links to hospitals which keep photo databases of unidentified corpses.

There's also a link with vital information for those on the ground: guidelines on how to treat corpses found in the recovery effort.

Those looking for missing friends and family members are using the web as well.

"I spent all day on the Internet today," Karen Pena from Virginia told ABC News. She's looking for friends who were scuba diving in the Indian Ocean. "That's why I'm doing this, because I'm afraid something's happened to them."

Pena may find her friends. It's worked for others already. A photo of Swedish toddler Hannes Bergstroem was posted online by a Thai hospital.

After his uncle spotted the photo, young Hannes had a tearful but happy reunion with his father Marko Karkkainen at another hospital. Sadly, Hannes's mother, Suzanne Bergstroem, was still among the 5,000 people missing in Thailand.

In another example, an Italian schoolboy who normally runs a site dedicated to "The Simpsons" has changed his focus to help people track down missing Italian citizens.

Valerio Natale, 14, says he's already helped find two missing tourists -- Dario Collodi and Liliana Giordanino -- thanks to postings on his website.

"I was looking through the newspaper and saw lots of ads from people looking for relatives," Natale told Reuters. "I asked myself, 'Why not make a free site that can help everybody?'"

Charities are also benefiting from increased online donations. Countless users have linked their pages to charity sites. The agencies appreciate receiving donations online since it's cost efficient, fast and they can usually issue instant electronic tax receipts.

However, as the scale of the tragedy comes into focus, many news and charity sites have crashed, forcing them to increase bandwidth.