Social media gives victim a voice. With many of the official lines of communication down, user-generated content played an important role yesterday in spreading news about the Haiti earthquake. Social media partly made up for the lack of information from the affected area on what had happened and what was most needed. Twitterfeeds gave an impressive picture of the ongoing earthquake, and the Guardian's live blog on the rescue mission used social media as well as information from other news organisations. The BBC also covered the event combining tweets from the area with the work of its reporter Matthew Price in Port-au-Prince. However, the news organisation with the most material on the quake at present looks to be CNN. "We immediately moved someone supervising social media and our iReports to the Haiti desk," said Nick Wrenn, vice president of CNN International Digital Services.
In the Haiti crisis, CNN has published a selection of social media material, making clear what isn't verified. Live blog Guardian. 7.50am: The earthquake has cut much of the communication to Haiti including airports, but harrowing eyewitness accounts have emerged. "Everything started shaking, people were screaming, houses started collapsing, it's total chaos," said Joseph Guyler Delva, a Reuters reporter. This footage which appears to show a dust cloud from a destroyed urban area appeared on YouTube. Many of the initial accounts of the devastation were posted to Twitter, according to the New York Times Lede blog. The LA Times has a compiled a list of Twitter user who say they are in Port-au-Prince. The New York Times has another useful Twitter list. Several UN personnel are unaccounted for, after the headquarters of the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (Minustah) was seriously damaged.
The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said: "My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. The US Geological Survey said the quake was a 7.0 in magnitude and the epicentre was just south-west of the capital Port-au-Prince. 9.04am: 2. Edpilkington (Edpilkington) Will be leaving. MapRefugees leave Port au Prince.
Davos2010: ClintonAppeal. CNN. NYT New York Times. Pierre Côté (pierrecote) Pierre Cote (pierrecote) on Qik. Haiti locals. Reporters Sans Frontières. Pierre Côté: Reporters Without Borders... Reporters Sans Frontières. Reuters Haiti live blog. Clinton to FBN: “We’re Setting up a ‘Haiti Desk’ Here” « L. Haiti quake TwitterPict ures. An outpouring of well wishes and support for the Haitian people has swept the web in the wake of a devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. And just like during the Eureka earthquake, tweets have quickly spread moving and gut-wrenching TwitPics of the disaster.
Photos taken by journalist @CarelPedre on his mobile phone are providing a glimpse into the devastation that has slammed the Caribbean nation. Another Twitter user, @MarvinAdy, shared those pictures through TwitPic, resulting in tens of thousands of views and countless retweets. There are also thousands of Facebook and Twitter updates on the disaster appearing every minute. The web has been moved by the plight of the Haitian people. Social media has quickly become the first place where millions react to large-scale catastrophes. Our best wishes go out to the victims of this devastating natural disaster, as well as their families. Haiti Earthquake in Pictures.
Survey the Damage in Haiti With Google Earth. You can now get a satellite's-eye view of the devastation in Haiti with Google Earth. Google worked with satellite imaging company GeoEye to put together a map layer file that provides up-close views of the wreckage of government buildings and more in the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince. Download the file to check it out. It's in KML format, and it should load in Google Earth automatically if you have that desktop app installed. Alternatively, you can just pull it up in the web-based Google Maps app.
If you switch the layer on and off for some before-and-after perspective, you'll see just how serious the damage is — as if the pictures circulating on Twitter and other places on the Internet weren't harrowing enough already. You can help relief workers, orphanages and other critical services in Haiti by donating on the web.
WSJ 3Maps Interactive Haiti. USATODAY IntrctiveMap. ESAsatellite map Haiti earthquake. Port-au-Prince, Haiti First satellite map of Haiti earthquake 14 January 2010 A major 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 12 January, causing major casualties and damage. The quake was followed by several aftershocks with magnitudes over 5.0. Such a powerful earthquake can make current maps suddenly out of date, causing additional challenges to rescue workers on the ground. Earth observation satellite images can help rescue efforts by providing updated views of how the landscape and the infrastructure have been affected.
Following the event, the French Civil Protection authorities, the Public Safety of Canada, the American Earthquake Hazards Programme of USGS and the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti requested satellite data of the area from the International Charter on ‘Space and Major Disasters’. To meet the requirements of the rescue teams in Haiti, Very High Resolution imagery is needed from both optical and radar sensors.
NewSatellite maps of Haiti coming in. Damage around Port-au-Prince, Haiti New satellite maps of Haiti coming in 15 January 2010 As rescue workers scramble to provide assistance to hundreds of thousands of people following Haiti’s earthquake, Earth observation satellite data continues to provide updated views of the situation on the ground. Following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January, international agencies requested satellite data of the area from the International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters'.
The Charter, an international initiative aimed at providing satellite data free of charge to those affected by disasters anywhere in the world, immediately began re-tasking their satellites to get the data urgently needed. Data are being collected by various satellites including Japan’s ALOS, CNES’s Spot-5, the U.S.’s WorldView and QuickBird, Canada’s RADARSAT-2, China’s HJ-1-A/B and ESA’s ERS-2 and Envisat. These data are being processed into maps that show the degree of destruction. USAtoday interactiMap. SMSdonations % Map USA. TED: How you can help. TED Ushahidi aggregates disseminates. The TED Blog today spoke with Patrick Meier, who is part of the team at Ushahidi working to bring information about the Haiti earthquake crisis to Haitians (those inside and outside the country), the press, humanitarian relief workers, governments, and concerned people worldwide.
(TED Senior Fellow Erik Hersman, TED speaker Ory Okolloh and TED Senior Fellow Juliana Rotich co-founded the organization.) Visit Ushahidi’s Haiti site at >> Talk about you and your team’s immediate response to the earthquake in Haiti. I found out about the earthquake around 7pm. We then collaborated with a number of our colleagues within the Ushahidi family, especially the International Network of Crisis Mappers, which Ushahidi co-founded and launched in October of 2009. We had support from two fantastic individuals from UN OCHA Colombia. So, between 7pm and midnight, we had a number of individuals helping to customize the website as much as possible. Partners In Health (PIH), Health Care for the Poor. PartnersInHe alth Updates. Partners In Health (PIH_org)
Latimes/Haiti QuakeList. Strong Aftershock Hits Haiti, Facebook Users Pour Out Their Supp. A new wave of panic hit the streets of Haiti this morning as a strong aftershock unleashed even more destruction on the ravaged country. This secondary quake was estimated at 6.1 magnitude, but reports on further damage aren't yet available. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, today's earthquake was centered 26 miles west-northwest of Jacmel. As military personnel are trying to keep order in the streets of Port-au-Prince, the secondary quake raises further concerns of riots and violence breaking out in the Haitian capital. With Twitter currently being flaky, many users have turned to Facebook to point out the news and express their support.
Médias-Presse.