by Last Monday two earthquakes shook Turkey and Syria, the first, with a magnitude of 7.8, occurred at 4:17 local time and the second, with a magnitude of 7.5, at noon. According to the entities that attend to the emergency in both nations, the powerful telluric movements have left a balance of more than 5,000 deaths in the two countries.
But it is estimated that the number of dead and missing could increase as the hours go by, since the latest figure released by Turkey speaks of 3,549 deaths. In Syria, at least 1,602 people have died, according to Damascus authorities and rescue teams from rebel areas.
In the midst of the confusion and chaos caused by a catastrophe as devastating as the one that the people of Turkey and Syria are now experiencing, communications are often affected and this situation causes great anguish among people who need to contact their loved ones to know if they are well.
For this reason, in recent years Google and Facebook have incorporated into their platforms a series of functions that help locate people, in addition to generating a notice to family and loved ones to indicate that they are safe.
How to use Google or Facebook to find your loved ones after an earthquake?
Safety Check, the Facebook tool to locate people after an emergency
At the moment, Facebook has a tool called ‘Safety Check‘, which is designed to generate a special notification addressed to the user’s friends, to indicate that the user is fine.
This tool is automatically activated on Facebook in the event of catastrophes, such as the earthquake in Turkey, where it is already enabled for the population of that country to use it.
According to the Meta social network, when an incident occurs, such as an earthquake, hurricane, shooting or building collapse, information agencies that monitor emergency situations around the world alert Facebook.
Immediately, the security status verification system is activated and while the people who are in the affected area share information about the incident on the platform, the security status check system will automatically be activated.
Users of the social network who are in the vicinity of the area affected by the natural disaster can receive a notification on Facebook asking them to confirm that they are okay. In addition, you will be able to review the security check notification to detect other friends who are on the same site.
How to use the Facebook system to know if other people are okay?
When you receive a notification from Facebook asking if you are okay, you should click on “I’m fine”.
To ask someone if they are safe during a disaster:
- Initially the user must go to the emergency response section and select the page of an emergency situation.
- On the page of the emergency situation, you will have to click on ‘Security Status Check’.
- Then you should check the option ‘Friends in the area’which generates a list of contacts that have indicated that they are fine and another of friends who still they have not done it.
- In this section you can use the search bar to search for a friend by name, but this option will only work to locate people who are friends of the user on Facebook.
- To do this, click on ‘Ask if it’s okay’, next to the person’s name.
Once the question is generated to the Facebook friend, he will receive a notification with which that person can confirm his status and in this way the user will be able to receive a piece of peace of mind about the conditions in which a relative or being is. darling.
Google People Locator (Person Finder)
Google Person Finder is a web application that allows people to look up the status of family members or friends affected by a disaster. The program also allows press agencies or non-governmental entities to contribute to the database and receive updates through the platform.
This service is one of the tools used by the Google Crisis Response team, which analyzes the impact of the disaster and then determines which of its tools would be most useful in responding to the situation.
But it is important to note that all data entered into the tool is publicly available and can be searched and accessed by anyone. Since Google does not review or verify the accuracy of that information, it is effectively up to users to update and delete records when they are no longer useful.
However, users can also report spam, offensive content, or incorrect information. In fact, Google Person Finder allows you to subscribe to the status updates of a particular person.
At the same time, Google launched an emergency alert system for earthquakes and other situations.
What is Google’s alert system for an earthquake?
Seismic movements are a natural phenomenon that occurs with high frequency in certain parts of the world, such as what happened in Turkey and Syria. For this reason, Google several years ago decided to incorporate into its operating system for mobile devices a protocol early warning that can help its users to react in time to a tremor or an earthquake, this in cooperation with California Emergency Services and ShakeAlert Technology.
The main advantage offered by this alert system is that it would have the ability to warn a population seconds before an earthquake occurs, in order to provide a response time that helps save lives.
The central axis of this system lies in the fact that there is a large network of connected telephones, since this condition allows Google to collect with accurately the information needed to generate a detailed alert that can help prevent a tragedy.
To do this, Android uses the information that accelerometers, a sensor that is incorporated into almost any smartphone, record in real time.
When an accelerometer manages to detect movements that can be produced by an earthquake, this function is activated, generating an alert to Google and a system immediately analyzes the information that other devices located in a nearby area emit.
