Several days ago, when the news about the earthquake that rocked Aceh spread, people turned to the Internet to find out what happened. Those of us who were outside the earthquake zone may simply want to know where and how big the earthquake occurred. Then tweet about it. But for those who are in the affected areas, information is every important and crucial. It might even make a difference in the matter of life and death.
Google is aware of people’s tendency to seek information about the disaster via the internet once the disaster occurs. Therefore, shortly after the earthquake, based on the data from Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Google presented a crisis map on http://google.org/crisismap. This map contains a tsunami warning for coastal cities around the earthquake point.
In the map, every city that is likely to be affected by the tsunami caused by the earthquake, is marked and given information such as name, location and estimated time in GMT on when it will be affected by the tsunami. Information is presented in full but brief enough for us to read and understand.
Thankfully, yesterday’s earthquake didn’t lead to huge a tsunami, but given that Indonesia is in an area prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, in the future, the information presented in Google Map Crisis can reduce the impact of disasters.
