Web sites and blogs have become the announcement boards and lost and founds for a disaster that has left many thousands of people unaccounted for, including 2,000 to 3,000 Americans and thousands more Europeans and other non-Asian visitors to the region.

On the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Web site, dozens of people posted notes seeking someone.

"Does anyone have news of my colleague Chuck Kearcik and his wife Melinda and children Candice and Charlie (U.S. citizens working in Kuwait, vacationing in the Maldives)?" asked Andy of Kuwait City.

Cheryl Boehm of Houston searched for her father, Jesse L. Adams. "He is an American citizen and is retired living on South Pattaya Beach. Please contact me with any information as I have no way to find or communicate with him right now! Please help me find my Dad!!"

Others sent text messages from across continents in a bid to find those who are missing.

In Sweden and Denmark, mobile phone operators stopped charging for mobile calls to and from Southeast Asia for 48 hours to make it easier for survivors to get in touch with their families.

In the Nordic nations, blogs and Internet bulletin boards were rife with queries about people among the 2,700 missing Finns, Norwegians, Swedes and Danes.

"Veronika Priebe Jakobsson and her family? They were in Thailand? Has anyone heard from them?" asked one post on the Phuket Disaster Message Board.

Another message, from Glen Barlow, said: "We are looking for Nigel, Lotta and little Alec from Sweden."

One of the lucky few, Barlow posted another message less than six hours later saying the family had been found and was flying home.

Valerio Natale, a 14-year-old Italian, started a Web site a year ago about "The Simpsons" television show, but this week he replaced it with a site for Italians searching for missing relatives.

Yesterday, a Swedish toddler, Hannes Bergstroem, was reunited with his injured father at a Thai hospital, days after being found wandering alone in the wreckage. The 2-year-old's uncle had spotted the child's photo posted on the Web by another hospital. Hannes' mother was still missing.

It's an example of the reach and immediacy of modern technology. With cell phones, thousands of people in the disaster zone were able to send text messages to newspapers and television stations getting word back home.

One site, www.2bangkok.com, filed nonstop reports about the disaster, offering links to news reports, pictures from Thai television and other blogs, as well as photos found on the Internet.

A group in Bombay, India, started a blog, http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com, to list numbers, addresses and links for those interested in helping.

The site also provides a place for readers to post messages and replies about those missing. It has contributors across the disaster zone, including one in Sri Lanka who sends updates via cell phone text messages.

The International Red Cross started its own Web site yesterday to help people track down survivors. In addition, the search engine Google has a link on its home page that connects users with a number of international relief agencies.