[Cross posted from the Official Google.org Blog]
Last week, India’s east coast was struck by Cyclone Phailin, a severe tropical cyclone that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the affected region.
Google Crisis Response published a landing page in Hindi and English with resources and information to help those affected by the cyclone. The page included a crisis map with information on the storm’s path and impact, storm shelters, hospitals, and more. We also gathered contact numbers for important resources such as local emergency operation centers and railway helplines.
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| Crisis Map of Cyclone Phailin |
We made Person Finder available in Hindi, Bengali, and English to help locate missing loved ones—a service that proved helpful during the Uttarakhand Floods in June 2013. We make the tool available to check and post on the status of relatives or friends as long as it’s needed and valuable during a crisis. Fortunately, the rapid evacuation of so many in the affected regions have meant that most people have been accounted for and Person Finder is no longer active for this disaster.
Responding to a storm of this scale is daunting and requires the work of many, but we can all do something to help. We hope these tools provided value to those affected by Cyclone Phailin and are grateful to the partners on the ground who helped us bring information to affected regions. We will continue to work with local governments in the area to determine ways for us to contribute.
Posted by Jayanth Mysore, Senior Product Manager on behalf of Google APAC and the Google Crisis Response team
