[Edit - 25th Jan - I've now heard from everyone that I know that was in the affected areas - everyone and their families are safe. ]
One of the things I like about travelling around is meeting and getting to know people from all parts of the world. You make friends, increase your 'network', learn about different places and cultures. You dont necessarily have to even go overseas to do this - Melbourne's mismatch of cultures lets you do this. Everyone benefits - its all good.
Until something like this earthquake / tsunami happens. Then, you realise that you have friends in that area. You realise that you've got friends with family in that area. Things get bad about that point.
You see, I've spent the last few days watching way too much on the news about this disaster. Which means that I've got too involved and worried about the situation. Worried about things i couldn't change.
I've just had an email from Holly (who I met in Scotland), saying that she was in Chennai, but on the other side of town, away from the beach. She was fast asleep at the time, seeing it was about 9.30am. But, they had had plans to go to the beach that afternoon... I'd been kinda worried about her.
I still haven't heard from a friend that I used to work with at Infosys. She's got family in Indonesia, and also has kept in contact with some of the people we met in India - some of whom have family on the east coast of India.
I also haven't heard from another friend who's got family in Sri Lanka.
I s'pose there's not much you can do, except hope and pray. Oh, you can also donate to the relief fund - amazon makes it really easy.