Tens of thousands of email messages from around the world offering condolences to the families of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman have been received by three websites that opened on Monday.
More than 22,000 people emailed a Cambridgeshire police website within 20 hours of it opening; 9,000 emails were received within the first day at a website set up by Cambridgeshire county council; and thousands have contacted a community website.
Tributes at a rate of 30 a minute, one every two seconds, are coming from Australia, Israel, Zimbabwe, Bahrain, Brazil, and Dubai. One came from an oil rig in the North Sea.
The idea of channelling public grief on to a website was pioneered after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when 600,000 messages were posted on the royal website in the week of her funeral.
A site set up by New York police after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre received an overwhelming response last year. But the use of electronic books of condolence for the death of two hitherto unknown girls is a departure.Yesterday the first non-electronic books of condolence at St Andrew's Church in Soham were being filled by local mourners and visitors from around the country.
The Cambridgeshire county council website posted a selection of the emails it received. One, from a man in Sri Lanka, read: "I was following your daughters' case from day one on Sky News, here in Sri Lanka. Each day I hoped would bring better news than the previous. The final outcome has been incomprehensible and intolerable, even for me, someone from a war-hardened country thousands of miles away."
A second, from Margaret and Chris in France, said: "Words can't express how we feel, but I hope that the love which will come to you through this modern medium may help in some way."
A 13-year-old from Palestine wrote: "I heard the dreadful news of the two girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. I've been following the latest news every day, hoping that it would turn out well. I feel deeply sorry for them."
Many messages are from parents. "As a mother of a child of the same age, I am at a loss as to what to say: I have worried with you; I have hoped with you; I have despaired with you; I have cried with you," wrote one woman from Yeovil in Somerset.
Celia Minnett, who is overseeing the operation, said: "We're getting about 20 a minute - it's amazing. All of them are really moving. Now that we have the internet, people in Australia can express their thoughts to the parents in a direct way."
The three electronic books - www.cambs.police.uk/soham, www.sohamtragedy.org.uk, and www.cambs.police.uk - will remain open for as long as there is a demand, and then be downloaded and placed into books for the girls' families.
Bob Pearson, the council spokesman who came up with the idea, said: "We just thought it was the right thing to do, and we have been overwhelmed by the results."
