Within the past week a horrific Typhoon has hit the Philippines that has cut off communication in the worst hit areas. Since communications were cut off families all around the world do not know if their family memebers are safe and/or alive. Since cell service has been down for days family members have been overloading social media sites such as twitter to find their loved ones. According to The Telegraph, Many of the appeals noted that there had been no communications from Tacloban, where some 10,000 people may have died, since Friday, when the storm blew in. Families also posted photographs to help aid workers identify their loved ones.
Twitter has been overloaded with tweets trying to find loved ones and organizations trying to collect aid for the Phillipines.
Relief efforts for Typhoon Haiyan are underway as well, Twitter is the best place to see this! Maybe if you did not see the red cross or other organizations tweeting about how you can donate, just find your favorite celebrity and they can guide you in the right direction on how to donate.
Twitter users are not the only ones who are expressing there concern about this horrific disaster, Instagram has been buzzing with images and ways to help the relief effort.
Since so many people are using social media to talk about disasters many companies have decided to use social media tracking/mapping. According to The Wall Street Journal:
"So Swiss-born Patrick Meier is gearing up to attack the problem with a new approach called social mapping: Using a combination of volunteers and algorithms to filter the chaos and to provide rescue teams with a detailed, data-driven map of what they should be doing, and where.
The idea is to use a software platform called MicroMappers to identify useful information through set keywords. Volunteers refine the process further by noting, or tagging, to classify tweets according to their content, whether they are appeals for help, reports of property damage or shortages of medical supplies"
This is extremely important because social media is expanding day by day and becoming a part of everyone life. So when a disaster hits social media is a much quicker way to find out what is going on than news reporting. Mapping these types a disasters can better help the most needed areas.
I can remeber when Hurricane Sandy hit in the U.S in 2012, my Facebook and Twitter feeds were flooded with my friends and family trying to make sure everyone was okay and voiceing there frustrations.