With the recent events of the 8.9 earthquake in Japan, news traveled fast, and it was just not second or third hand accounts. it was live, it was real, and it brought you into the middle crisis. I do not post this to take away from the real horror and tragedy of the people who are personally in the middle of this, because this is not the intent. I was up doing some work and then on my Twitter stream I get notification of an earthquake happening. Soon, images came of the event, then the video. Then the tsunami images and video. I thought about what was actually happening, and the fear and shock of the people. I did not have to think too hard on this either. I saw it in their faces. The cameras caught all the action, all the emotion. And social media is bringing this out to the world. As the people in North America started to wake, it spread. Some people on the West Coast were already preparing to head for higher ground before the alerts sounded and the authorities started to evacuate the seaside towns.
Google snapped into action using their Person Finder again:
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
This can help people locate each other, or provide information of people they do know. On this page, they even have a YouTube video of how the quake affected a couple of local residents.
Wikipedia already has a page on the disaster. This includes information about the quake, the resulting tsunami and the international response.
With Twitter, you can see the timeline for the hashtag #japan, #Sendai and others. Providing images like this, news, information and location of others. Facebook is another area to get more information from the various pages and people.
This does not include the cell phone images and video people are taking, posting to YouTube, TwitPic, and others. Social Media is connecting the world right now. People can see the horrific devastation up front.
There are many ways to help, and if you know of any, please let em know. The Red Cross address is below:
http://newsroom.redcross.org/2011/03/11/disaster-alert-earthquake-in-japan-tsunami-warnings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedCrossOnlineNewsroom+%28American+Red+Cross+Online+Newsroom%29
For all my friends and colleagues and readers in Japan, know that out thoughts and prayers are with you.