July 20, 2006
Mobile technology aids Swedish evacuation
By Thursday morning, almost all Swedish citizens had been evacuated from Lebanon after a gruelling four-day, round-the-clock operation coordinated by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. Sweden's News in English, The Local reports.
"The Swedish evacuation effort, supported by mobile phone technology, has been held up as a "model of order" by commentators in other countries such as Canada, Australia and the US which, on Thursday, were only beginning their own evacuations.
... According to foreign ministry spokeswoman Nina Ersman, text messaging has been a major tool in the Swedish evacuation operation. "In the last week we have sent out five text messages to everyone in Lebanon who is registered with a Swedish mobile network," she told The Local.
Telia's Jan Sjöberg explained that its mobile subscribers who were in Lebanon were sent an SMS as early as last Friday, which told them that an evacuation would be taking place. Since then, further messages have told people to get to a certain hotel at a certain time, depending upon their priority status."
Related praise for the French: - French Embassy Updates Citizens in Lebanon by SMS
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