Technology comes to rescue of families

At a time when Nepal and some parts of India have been disturbed by a devastating earthquake, modern web technology is turning out to be a boon as distressed family members are able to find their loved ones.

Social networking website like Facebook and Google’s Person Finder have helped locate the whereabouts of those abandoned in quake-hit areas. For example, members of one Himmatramka family residing in Birgunj in Nepal marked themselves safe on website like Facebook. Nitesh Himmatramka said, “Our relatives back in India were anxious about our safety.

So, we marked ourselves safe to notify them.” People from parts of West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have also used this app stating that they are safe. Facebook’s ‘Safety App’, is being used to locate those in the affected areas. Started in October last, the app is used to craete alerts to Facebook friends of those captured in the affected areas who, then, confirm that they are safe.

“Safety Check is our approach of helping our community during natural disasters and gives you an easy and simple way to say you’re safe and check on all your friends and family in one place,” Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg had said in a post.

The idea to begin such an app came after the 2011 Tsunami in Japan, which had caused massive devastation in the country as millions of people had little clue about the whereabouts of their kin for weeks.