I put this on the front page of my site on January 1st 2005. It was always a temporary thing, of course, but I feel the message is important enough not to simply erase it from existance. When the camera teams are gone and the money has been donated, the consequences of this terrible event will still be there. Let's try not to forget about these people just yet.

Something bad has happened!

And I really don't have to tell you what...

You only have to turn on the news to see what's going on in South-East Asia. You only have to open the newspaper to read the grueling stories of those who are left to tell them. And those are the people from the parts that can be reached!

Casualties mount and mount and mount. The official number now stands at over one hundred thousand. Perhaps this number is an exageration, as so often happens after major disasters; the chaos is too vast to be sure. But how far down does this number need to go down to even enter the realm of human imagination?

With so many dead, how many more must be injured, homeless, destitute? How will these countries around the Indian ocean be able to rebuild so much all by themselves?

As I'm typing this it's 90 minutes into the new year in the Dutch timezone. My first clear thought of this year was of the millions of people who entered the new year under the most horrible conditions. People who never saw it coming. People who were taken by surprise as much as you or I would have been.

These people need help. They're going to need help for quite some time to come. There is preciously little that I can do. All I can do is donate, and appeal to others to do the same thing.For that, I need some sort of platform, and this site is the only platform I have.

So, no Arno's Amazing Website this week. Only an appeal to anyone who reads this: if you donated, well done. If you haven't donated yet, do it now. If you think you have nothing to give, just look at the images on TV and in the papers to see what 'nothing' really means. If you're loaded with money, there'd better be a good donation in the bank already!

There's a section on the CNN website listing aid groups accepting donations. I don't know what this list is worth, but it might be a good place to start. The BBC World Service has something similar, with a bit more information about the various organisations. It is, however, focussed more on British readers.

If you will consider this, I promise that the website will be back next weekend, updated with new chatquotes and everything.

Everyone, have a happy newyear.