Chennai floods disaster: Facebook’s Safety Check feature has been activated and Google has launched its own relief response page for Chennai.
Facebook’s Safety Check feature has been activated for Chennai on account of the heavy flooding and rains in the Tamil Nadu capital. Meanwhile Google has also launched its own resource page for flooding in South India. The Facebook Safety Check feature lets users mark themselves as safe and notify their friends about their status as well. If a user is in the affected area, they can let their friends know and reach out for help.
Google’s Crisis response page for the Chennai floods can be accessed here. It has a list of emergency numbers, what Chennai, a crowd-sourced list of the flooded streets in Chennai and a list of relief centres in the city. Facebook’s Safety Check feature was recently activated in Nigeria and Paris after the bombings and terror attacks. Until the Paris attacks, the feature had been restricted to natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, etc but after that Facebook decided it would extend the feature to man-made tragedies as well.
Facebook has emerged as an important source of reaching out for help for many people in Chennai. Users have been posting status messages about friends, family, who are caught in affected areas and in need of rescue or medical help.
Emergency numbers, provisions, offers for space are being extensively shared on the social media platform.