Social Media Tools that Save Lives
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You’ve probably heard or read about the tragic typhoon incident that happened in the Philippines’ capital last weekend. The typhoon caused heavy rainfall sending floods all over Manila and leaving almost 500,000 families homeless and at least around 150 people dead. The fatality could have been more if not for the barrage of information, call for help and communication brigade done by Filipinos through the help of social media tools.Five prominent social media tools were heavily used during the height of the event either to call for rescue, situation advisory, donations and simply to update on what has been going on, especially since electricity was immediately cut-off. Take not of these social media tools, as they are proven to be useful not just for playing online games and meeting people but also for saving lives during times of tragedy.
Twitter tops the list of the online social tools used widely by many Filipinos to disseminate information during the tragic event. Flood victims trapped on top of their roofs or second floor of their houses call their friends and loved ones not affected by the floods to rescue them or at least tell them that the y are safe. Those who got a text message or call from their friends and family who could not watch TV start spreading information via Twitter. The Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro continously checked his Twitter account to check updates on the situation. One prominent news and public affairs TV program (ANC) setup a Twitter account (@ANCAlerts) to receive Tweet Alerts from those affected or from other Filipinos who got distress call from their loved ones.
When everything has stopped and relief and rescue operations started, Twitter was still used to spread words on who to rescue, where to drop donations, what relief items were needed and all those sort of things. There was a downpour of volunteers and relief supplies, thanks to the barrage of Tweets that spread across the nation and to those Filipinos in other countries who wanted to help. Even celebrity Twitters pledge their help via their Twitter accounts.
Aside from Twitter, Facebook is also one of the most used social network by many Filipinos. There are around 1.5 million of Filipinos in Facebook. And that day, if you happen to have Filipino friends on Facebook you might have seen the slew of status updates from these Filipinos pertaining to the incident. Filipinos on Facebook exchanged information, relayed valuable updates and called for help and donation through their Facebook status updates. Some even called out to Filipinos to stop playing Mafia Wars and Farmville and to clear out their Facebook Walls and Statuses of silly things and instead were asked to post updates on what’s happening around the flooded areas.
Google Maps
To help in locating their loved ones who were still trapped in their flooded homes, several Google Maps of the affected areas were immediately created using Google Maps. TV Networks and News Media used this Google Map heavily to locate trapped victims. Typhoon Ondoy Situation Map for Metro Manila
Google Docs Spreadsheet
To help Filipinos overseas as well as other individuals in how to donate and helped out financially with the relied and rescue operations, this Google Docs Spreadsheets on “How/Where to Hep Out Ondoy Victims’ was pretty useful.
Other social media and online tools that helped Filipinos during the Ondoy Typhoon incident include:
Plurk - Plurk is very popular among students aside from Twitter. And it was also used by many Filipinos to spread information and news updates regarding the different places that were affected by the typhoon and floods.
YouTube
Those who are on higher grounds took videos of how quickly floods rose up, how cars were swept away among other things. These people quickly uploaded the videos on YouTube and Facebook.
For more videos, just search “Ondoy” in YouTube.
Blogs, blogs – Of course, if you’ve been following blogs owned and maintained by Filipinos, you must have read so many posts about the tragic event since Saturday and even until now.
These are just some of the social media tools heavily used by Filipinos and other individuals during the height of the tragic flooding in Metro Manila the past could of days. They are the new media in the Philippines and perhaps in other countries as well. These social media have surpassed the usefullness of TV and Radio when it comes to bringing up to date information and news during a time of crisis.
