Destination Twitter #typhoon

Morning mass today at Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon

As I write from my desk in Saigon, the sun is shining, big lofty clouds are floating by and a soft breeze rustles outside my window. A far cry from the typhoon that is lashing out and gaining strength in the central and northern regions of Vietnam. We have known it was coming for two days, watching and listening as mother nature tore into regions of the Philippines leaving harrowing scenes behind. I try following the few English TV news channels in Vietnam, I try following the news reports on the Internet media sites but I find, in the face of the emergency, if I need information quickly, Twitter is my 'go to' site. 


I have never experienced a disaster of the magnitude that has just struck the Philippines first hand but I have been on the other end of a disaster trying to reach family. I was once tucked away in a leafy suburb of Surrey, England about to turn out the lights for the evening when I received the following text message.

February 22 2011

12:18 AM
I want to come home. 

Massive earthquake, 

scariest moment of my life, 

but I am fine.

My daughter was in the midst of the earthquake that struck Christchurch, New Zealand with devastating consequences in 2011.  It was a moment when my expat world came crumbling down. I wrote a blog post on the text message here. That was the moment in time when I knew that Twitter was going to be my salvation. I tuned into every reference I could find that involved the earthquake and stayed in touch. She was without power for some time so I fed her 'tweet bites' the best I could. I can tell you in all honesty it is 'a place' I never want to visit again.

I was lucky, my daughter was fine. I know their are mothers, fathers, daughters and sons who will suffer as a result of Typhoon Haiyan and my prayers go out to them. It is an unimaginable tragedy.

If you have a Twitter account and would like to follow my Vietnam List, you can find it here.