Soon after the huge Chilean earthquake which spawned tsunami warnings across the Pacific, while also devastating the country, Google activated an online Chile "person finder" tool.
Similar to one Google activated in January after the Haiti earthquake, the tool will help friends and relatives to (hopefully) find loved ones missing after the temblor, which registered magnitude 8.8 on the Richter scale. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake struck 56 miles northeast of the city of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles at 3:34 AM (1:34 AM EST).
The tool is currently tracking 3,400 records at the time of this writing. In comparison, the Haiti tool, which has been tracking people since January 12th, is tracking 58,700 records.
To use either tool, those who either have information about a person involved in the earthquake, or are searching for someone involved, can simply go to the site and "I'm looking for someone" or "I have information about someone." Much as with YouTube videos, Google allows the tool to be embedded in sites (as above; that is not an image but is live, and below).
In addition to the help being provided by Google and obviously, by organizations such as the Red Cross, social media is making an impact as well. For example, Twitter is being used at hashtags #Chile and #tsunami to distribute info about the disaster, as well as info from areas affected, or even evacuated, in relation to tsunamis.
Saturday's 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile has killed at least 122 people, and tsunami alerts have been posted across the Pacific. The largest earthquake ever recorded was also in Chile, and is known as the Great Chilean Earthquake. It occurred in 1960, and was a 9.5 magnitude quake.
1 comments:
That's a new services that comes into the peoples help. Very nice done by Google.!
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